


Down A Hole

by AbsintheDreams



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dubious Consent, F/M, M/M, Oral Sex, Tom Riddle is His Own Warning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-10-01 09:09:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 23,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17241497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbsintheDreams/pseuds/AbsintheDreams
Summary: A dark world. An insideous game. Hermione falls into a Wonderland where death and people with magic and animal ears are perfectly normal. Everything is madness, but not even madness can excuse the way she feels for Tom Riddle.





	1. Cards It Is

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione was a utterly ordinary girl, or so she adamantly believed until she tumbled down a ridiculous hole into a dream world. A world ruled by a mad Queen of Spades, where murder and mayhem are common place. Where people sport animal ears and gibberish hand in hand. Lucky she meets a young Tom Riddle to help guide her. He's mortal, like her, and together she is certain they can defeat the Dark Lord who cursed Wonderland, and gave the Queen of Spades her power. And if not, it's only a dream, right?

“If I had a world of my own  
Everything would be nonsense  
Nothing would be what it is  
Because everything would be what it isn't.”

-Lewis C. Carol

Down A Hole  
By: Absinthe Dreams 

 

It was one of those lackadaisical summer days where the sky seemed bluer, the cotton candy clouds almost cartoonish in their puffy perfection. The sun blazed, a golden orb lazily dragging across the sky, but Hermione found sanctuary beneath a giant oak. The leaves filtering the light into splotches and beams, as a delightful breeze ruffled her curls. The seventeen year old girl lay out in a decidedly unladylike fashion. Sprawled widely across the prickly grass, mindless of how it mussed her red pinafore skirts, fluffed with layers of white ruffles beneath the candy apple red cotton that ended at her knees. Showcasing her red and black striped tights. Her fingers held a book above her face, expression absorbed in thought as her eyes flew across the print. Her wild hair haloed her head in a splay of russet curls, one of which Ginny idly tugged, sighing in deep, relentless boredom. 

“Hermione,” her friend whined, having resorted to tugging her companion’s hair after calling her name no less than five times, “it's been hours. Can't you put down that book for a while? We could play a game,” she suggested eagerly. The red head tucked her own sleek strawberry hair behind the white band on her crown, looking darling and delicate in her dark blue puffy skirts and white ribbons in a way Hermione was certain she never could herself. 

Would you like to play a game Hermione…?

Let's play a game. 

Hermione blinked hard, perhaps she'd had too much sun despite her shady refuge. The voice that spoke was rough, jarring. For a silly moment she thought she almost heard it aloud. Setting her book aside, careful to place the flowery bookmark Ginny had made for her two summers past between the pages, she rose to a sitting position, stretching her arms and arching her back. She redirected herself to the real person staring at her insistently. 

“What sort of game, then?” She asked indulgently. Ginny’s powder blue eyes lit up and she grinned impishly, the expression transforming her into the mischievous girl Hermione had known since primary school. The one who was always dragging her into trouble, and then lying through her perfect pearl teeth to get them out of it again. 

“We could play dice,” at the crinkle in Hermione's nose the red headed girl relented with a sigh, “Or something more decent like cards.” 

“There's little point in dice when we have no money to bet,” Hermione pointed out wryly. It was vulgar for women to gamble, but that hardly stopped Ginevra Weasley from doing as she pleased. 

Ginny was a bit reckless with her reputation, but her bloodline was aristocratic in a way Hermione's own would never be, no matter how well she married. So the fierce girl was allowed her eccentricities due to her prestigious heritage, even as her family tried to curb her temperament by shipping her off to Hogwarts Preparatory for Young Women, a effort that was proving utterly futile. No one could stop the locomotive will power that made up Ginny Weasley, not her father, nor her numerous brothers, and certainly not her nannies or teachers. 

“Fine, fine. So cards?” Ginny rose, brushing off her skirts in a flurry, always a ball of hyper energy. Hermione's lips twisted wryly and she nodded, letting out a large yawn that would have horrified the Headmistress, a dour and sensible woman named McGonagall. 

“Yes, we should play cards,” Hermione told her sleepily, leaning against the oak, it's rough bark catching at her thick curls. 

“Be right back!” Ginny yelled, having taken off in a loping run towards the manor house. A large estate that had been renovated just four years prior into Hogwarts Preparatory, a well reputed reform school for young women. Hermione smiled and let out another yawn, wondering how she had become so sleepy in such a short span of time. No matter. She would merely rest her eyes until Ginny returned and they would likely only play a few hands. The spritely red head always grew quickly bored of things, and with any luck they would be done in time for her to sneak a quick nap before dinner. 

Her eyes drifted shut, lashes dusting her cheekbones. The sunlight was just warm enough to keep her cozy, the tree softer than it should have rightly been. Her eyes blinked blurrily, and for just a moment her eyes glimpsed a tuft of albino fur, a streak of white bounded across the field of green strewn with butter yellow wildflowers and pink scattered blooms. Likely one of the rabbits the gardener had been complaining of, their greedy mouths gobbling the fresh lettuce and sprouts in the grey haired woman's well tended garden. Hermione smirked, eyes fluttering back closed, the lids feeling immeasurably heavy. 

Cards it is then...

Even as she drifted, the words jarred her, causing her to frown deeply, forehead creased. The voice was masculine, mocking, and almost vaguely familiar. 

Just remember…

It's only a game…

And all games…

Hermione felt a sense of vertigo, her stomach flipping as if she was falling a great distance. She woke with a start, eyes flying open, the last word ringing harsh and sharp in her ears although no one was there to speak it. 

End. 

It was unnatural to be hearing a voice in her head. Certainly more so a man's voice that nagged with familiarity and yet remained elusive as ever. Frowning in earnest and pulling away from the tree, her amber eyes flickered across the sloping fields spotted with other oak trees much like the one she was near. No person was to be spotted. Not even Ginny, so she couldn't have possibly dozed off. At least, not for long. Heart racing, and stomach still in twists and knots from the odd sensation of falling awake, Hermione shook her head as if to clear it. 

She was a sensible girl, not prone to fancy like Ginny and the others, she preferred logic and numbers, almost delighting in the rigor of British etiquette, save for when it demanded she act so docile it was demeaning and behave as if she were a fluffy piece of decor without a thought or opinion in her head. 

After all, what was the point of women learning maths and languages if they weren't supposed to use them? To always act the simpering doll for their perspective beaus, is that what men truly wanted in their wives? Stupidity and a pretty face? It was while she was debating this long lamented tirade inside her head that she saw it. 

“Crooks?” She called, catching a sight of the orange tabby darting by. Likely after a plump bunny. He wasn't supposed to stray too far from Hogwarts, or at least she didn't like him to. If he caught another rabbit he would be covered in dirt and blood and rabbit bits, the Headmistress was sure to fuss and insist he sleep outdoors. But cats hardly listened and her’s perhaps least of all. “Crookshanks!” She called, rising and walking forward stiltedly as the flat faced feline paused and looked back at her. Almost as if beckoning her to follow. 

Which was silly. 

Cats didn’t like being chased. 

Likely as not he was taunting her with the idea of being willingly caught. 

She approached, slowly. Crooks waited until the girl was mere steps away before his ears perked upward, spotting the white rabbit Hermione had spied earlier. He turned, expression intent. 

“Oh no, Crooks don't,” she pleaded. The cat, of course, didn't heed her at all. It sprinted, and with uncharacteristic impulse, Hermione gave chase, thinking only of running the rabbit off before Crooks could catch it. Her wild russet tresses flew behind her, wind tearing at their frothy mass and tugging wildly at her red dress. Loosely tied black ribbons trailing behind her as she streaked after the hopping menace. She cut Crooks off, for the cat was wary of being caught, so it skidded to a halt at the sight of her advancing at her breakneck pace, and she adjusted coarse, intent on running the rabbit to it's hole if possible. Or far enough through the fields that Crookshanks would lose interest in the long eared menace at any rate.

Hermione's blood pumped so furiously as she ran, she could hear the drum of it in her ears, throbbing hot and heavy. Sweat slicked her skin, her breathing coming in sharp, jagged pants and she nearly stopped, feeling spent, when all the sudden the rabbit abruptly stopped just feet ahead, turning to face her. It was a curious little thing. Ivory white with large, gleaming black eyes, and the funniest mark on it's fur. The shape...almost like a black snake, cut so perfectly in through the left side of it's fuzzy forehead and down around its eye that it seemed surreal. 

The rabbit scratched it's ear, seeming to observe her in mute curiosity as she panted and grasped her knees, bent over and trying to catch her breath. Her complexion molted red from the heavy exercise in the noonday sun, hair a absolute bird's nest thanks to wind, she held the mass off her shoulders, sucking in deep, clean inhales as the cool soothing wind hit the back of her neck. 

“Shoo,” she snapped at the rabbit. Wiggling her fingers at it to startle it. It remained. Stubborn beast. It seemed arrogant, although how a rabbit pulled off a imperious expression she would be hard pressed to explain. It didn't twitch or startle. Merely stared. Yet there was something in it's demeanor that spoke of haughty self assurance, the way it's eyes half slitted at her perhaps, or the way it rose on its haunches and cocked its head at her. As if to say What?

“Go on, bunny,” she clapped her hands, hard. The rabbit remained. Stubborn. Aloof. Staring at her. “Do you want Crookshanks to catch you and rip you to pieces you silly thing?” 

It sniffed, tiny nose twitching once, and then something happened Hermione could not explain. It opened its furry mouth, exposing sharp little rabbit teeth, and spoke. 

“That cat could try,” the rabbit drawled in a perfect, aristocratic accent. “But I don't have time to play with your pet, I am already very, very late.” 

Flabbergasted, Hermione's jaw went slack as the tiny white rabbit dug into a pocket of its fur and produced a tiny pocket watch, it's silvery chain gleaming in the sunlight. Gobsmacked, she rubbed her eyes, feeling decidedly uneasy as she continued to see a talking rabbit examine a time piece, before she realized the only logical explanation. 

“I'm dreaming,” she announced, certain of it. “I'm dreaming, and you're just a figment of my imagination.”

The rabbit replaced it's watch after snapping the face of it shut and gave her another slitted glance.

“That's what you lot always say,” he mused cynically. “Dream away, then, Mudblood. The Queen of Spades doesn't like to be kept waiting, so I must be off.”

“What did you call me?” Hermione demanded. Even if this was a dream, there was no excuse for rudeness. 

“Mudblood, it's what we call all you top siders, you stink of that red mud running through you. Now if that's quite all, I really am late.” The rabbit twitched its nose, and gave what might have been a rabbitish bow, before he turned to hop off. 

“Wait!” Hermione called, not sure why she felt compelled to follow the rabbit still. Yet she couldn't not follow it. 

“Not bloody likely, the Queen isn't patient and I'm in no mood for one of her games,” the rabbit snapped, not pausing it's pace and she scowled at it's back. So rude. Why was she dreaming of such a rude rabbit? And what could a rabbit possibly be late for? 

“Please,” she called, jogging to keep sight of it, “Just a moment!” 

“No time,” he uttered curtly, and before her eyes a large rabbit hole simply appeared in the ground. Not to say she suddenly saw it there. No. The ground itself seemed to open up, the grass peeling aside and the earth crumbling beneath it. 

“What a strange dream,” Hermione muttered, pushing back her untidy curls and sighing as the rabbit leapt into the hole without pause. Vanishing into the large abyss. A moment later a orange flash of fur darted to the edge of the hole. 

“Crooks, no!” Dream or not, Hermione could not repress the overprotective feeling she had towards her pet. Crookshanks was her most beloved companion, and seeing him at the edge of a hole that lead heavens knew where set her into a state of instinctual alarm. Knowing it was just a dream, strangely enough, did not distill her panic

Approaching softly, so as not to startle her cat, she made her way to Crookshanks side. Clicking her tongue soothingly she bent over to catch the rascally feline, only to have it dart between her legs. The motion upset her balance, and her lunge went too far, sending her toppling head over heels, skirts flying in the air in a manner that would have caused her etiquette teacher, a toadish woman by the unfortunate name of Dolores Umbridge, to faint dead away. The girl tumbled quiet hard, so hard, in fact, her upper half slid over the edge of the hole. She didn't shriek, because it wasn't in her nature to do so, instead she let out a silent gasp as she stared wide eyed down toward the inky blackness. Just as she went to inch carefully backwards the earth under her fingers gave way, letting go to the black void below and releasing her to the weightless terror of falling. 

And with the sound of a very undignified yell of alarm, Hermione Granger fell down the rabbit hole, tumbling towards her fate in the company of blind darkness. 

 

_____-*-______

 

A/N: Hope you enjoyed the first installment of this little plot bunny. Rest assured there is more. I've written far ahead to ensure regular updates and Tomione goodness will ensue, so hang in there with me for the build up. Reviews are of course, the crack of the writers world, and I don't have a beta so feel free to point out errors and I will do my best to fix them.


	2. Wonderland That Was

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione was a utterly ordinary girl, or so she adamantly believed until she tumbled down a ridiculous hole into a dream world. A world ruled by a mad Queen of Spades, where murder and mayhem are common place. Where people sport animal ears and gibberish hand in hand. Lucky she meets a young Tom Riddle to help guide her. He's mortal, like her, and together she is certain they can defeat the Dark Lord who cursed Wonderland, and gave the Queen of Spades her power. And if not, it's only a dream, right?

“I think I need help  
Because I'm drowning in myself  
It's sinking in  
I can't pretend  
That I ain't been through hell.”

Papa Roach “Help”

Down A Hole  
By: Absinthe Dreams

 

Last time: And with the sound of a very undignified yell of alarm, Hermione Granger fell down the rabbit hole, tumbling towards her fate in the company of blind darkness…

 

Hermione Granger did not know how long she had been falling, but it seemed a impossibly long time. So long, in fact, that her cries for help and her initial burst of adrenaline had long abated, and she found herself tumbling in boredom wondering if, and when, she would land. Idly she also wondered if Ginny was up above, searching for her, until the honey eyed girl remembered she was merely dreaming and likely still beneath the large oak tree in the meadow, dozing soundly. Perhaps she would wake just as she landed, or just before. Logically she knew she couldn't feel pain, or die in a dream, so she had little to fear. 

Illogically, she still grew apprehensive at the thought of landing. Such a fall would maim her in reality, if not kill her instantly, and while she knew she wouldn't die in a dream she still wasn't looking forward to the experience of such a thing even inside her mind. Perhaps if she pinched herself…

“Ow,” she frowned. That hurt. Perhaps she was only imagining it did, but it felt rather real. Hermione snorted, “Right,” she voiced dryly into the endless darkness through which she tumbled, “and rabbits can talk, and the earth can suddenly open up. Really, be sensible.”

In a game there are Rules. 

First Rule, to play you must begin. 

Once you begin…

Hermione didn't like this voice, it was too eerie to hear it in her own head without conjuring it there herself. It made her brain itch a bit. She fought to urge to scratch her scalp as it spoke, it would do little good, it was her brain itself that itched, not her head. 

You can not stop until the game is finished. 

Once the game is finished, it all must end. 

So, shall we begin? 

“Like I have a choice,” Hermione sniffed, for whatever reason her mind had conjured this fanciful dream and there was no escaping it save for waking. A feat that could happen at any time, or seemingly take forever. 

We all have choices...

The voice had seemingly answered her, and she frowned, it was the first time it had done so. 

You can choose how to play, or when, but you must play, you see…

You've already agreed and so you've already begun. 

Hermione scoffed, “I don't remember agreeing to anything.” She retorted sourly. The voice didn't say anything. Of course it didn't. She was only imagining the nonexistent male in any case, if she was frustrated by her own dream she only had herself to blame. 

Just when she thought she might go mad with boredom, and growing irritable at the sightlessness she experienced in the endless pitch of the hole through which she fell, it all changed. It was a viscous substance she passed through, the membrane thin and glossy. Hermione frowned as she realized she wasn't passing through it, instead it formed a bubble around her. A glossy, perfect bubble, and she realized she could now see it because the earth around her had begun to glow with a soft light that gleamed every color of the rainbow. Like she was inside a rainbow itself, passing through each layer again and again. The colors grew brighter and brighter, fiercer and fiercer, until they nearly blinded her in their luminescence. 

In the blinding prism of colored light, a memory came to her. Only it didn't just appear in her head, it engulfed her. She became it. Suddenly, inexplicably, nine years old again and standing in the hallway of her home. She saw through her nine year old eyes, felt every sensation, but had no control in how she moved or felt. Trapped in a memory. 

Creeping through the halls of her family home like a mouse, nine year old her pressed her eyes to the crack in the study door. Spying was wrong. Mum always said so. But…Nine year old Hermione knew she'd never learn anything useful if she didn't sneak around. Just a little. Grownups knew nothing, and they were always hiding stupid things from her. 

“I know she can't live in a bubble her whole life, Jean, but that's no reason to send her away. I don't care if she marries some Lord or another, and neither does she. Plenty of time for that after she's older, much older,” Her father never raised his voice, but there was something in his tone that almost made her younger self want to run away. Race back to bed and shuffle under the covers, but her mother's calm voice froze her, the words matter of fact.

“She's smart, Henry, smarter than most boys, and she's not afraid to show it,” Jean sighed, “I wish I could say this world was kind or accepting of smart girls, but…” no longer calm, bitterness laced her mother's voice. “This world isn't and if we want her to be accepted into society she must marry, and marry well.” 

“Tosh! I married a very smart woman, and any man who doesn't want the same is himself, a fool. Regardless, money makes society tolerate much. I intend to leave you and her my entire fortune. Which I intend to make, shortly,” Henry replied, and Hermione grew wistful at her father's teasing tone. “Do you regret your life? Wish you'd been sent to one of those dreadful places?” 

“No. I love you, and Hermione, you are my entire world,” her mother spoke empathetically, “However, I am quite smart, and while I would have hated school, it would've helped me in many ways. And Henry, Hermione wants it.”

“So let her go to school here in London, and live here with us. Why send her away?”

“Because of her upcoming place in society, dear husband. Built on the fortune you are in fact making already, but it depends on more than some common school house. A preparatory school will teach her how to be smart, and also how to hide it, If she wishes to. In order to get the attention of a appropriate man.” At her husband's pout she cajoled sweetly, “Don't you want her to have more than we had? Her children could be actual nobility.”

“I don't like it.” Henry grumbled. 

“I don't want her to live elsewhere either, but it won't be until she's eleven, she’ll be ready then,” her mother, Hermione saw from peeking, wrapped her arms around her father in a rare display of intimacy.

“Well I won't be,” Her father complained good naturedly, “I changed my mind, the bubble it is.”

Her mother laughed. Her father, after a moment, couldn't help but join her. Hermione, nine and intent on listening, accidentally nudged the door, and both of them saw her. Which only made her father laugh harder and more genuinely and her mother roll her eyes. 

“Really, I told you Henry, entirely too smart for her own good. Come here you little sneak,” her mother's grin was wide and warm, taking any sting from her words, “and give your father and I a hug. Does your nanny know you've escaped?” 

“No, she's already sleeping,” nine year old Hermione chirped. 

A blink and she was back, tumbling in her bubble, the light back to a muted rainbow flow. Had she gone somewhere? Or was her memory just that vivid? Sprung upon her by the sight of herself in a literal bubble. A bubble that abruptly popped, as the sound of a clock ticking filled her ears. It was so loud she fought the urge to groan. It's ticking and tocking growing faster and faster, louder and louder, until it slowed, as did her fall. Looking down she saw another barrier, this one of glass, and as she hit it, the pieces shattered loudly around her, their jagged edges cutting at her red dress and golden skin. 

Just like that the light grew brighter and she was blinded again. The too bright prisms of spastic light jarred her into the memory. This time she was transported to moment when she was fourteen, horridly awkward and sniffling into her pillow. 

“I’m sure he felt something for you, but you're just a tooth doctor's daughter,” Ginny said it softly, regretfully, but the red headed girl only knew how to be blunt in her words, no softening of facts. Even as she stroked Hermione's hair in comfort her words stole the solace away. The comfort was far from sweet when mixed with bitter truth. 

“Lavender is the daughter of a duchess’ sister, he had to pick her, her father insisted. He's in parliament you know, and my father needs his support.”

Hermione felt, at that tender age of fourteen, as if she'd never known such a hurt. Her fragile heart felt as if it had broken and shattered into a million pieces. Sobs wracked her. Jagged, and sharp, like glass.

“I know my brother was kind to you-”

“He k-k-kissed me!” Hermione blurted out. “I thought that meant we were engaged.” she shattered all over again as her throbbing eyes met Ginny's wince through their blurred vision. Was it possible for a person to be made of glass? To shatter so hard inside she died on the outside? If it was, perhaps that's what was happening now.

“Oh Mione,” Ginny crooned, obviously feeling guilty for having suggested the match in the first place. It had seemed so right, after all. Ronald was so kind, and she already loved his family. Ginny could have been her actual sister. Why, oh why did he have to suddenly get engaged to Lavender Brown, of all girls? The blonde, syrupy voiced girl was horrid, and stupid. Hermione hated her, and all the other simpering girls who acted dull and dumb to get the boys attention 

But at least Lavender Brown was well bred and apparently pretty... given the way Ronald Weasley had looked at the vapid blonde twit, Hermione reluctantly had to admit that she was perhaps not Lavender's equal in that department. Hermione’s skin was not fashionably pale. Her freckles too obvious. Hips too wide and teeth too big. 

At least, Ronald Weasley never turned so red just looking at her. Not even when they kissed. 

“I know it seems bleak, but it's for the best, really, my brother is a utter idiot for not protesting it,” Ginny uttered venomously, “I hope she makes him miserable.”

Hermione blinked. The ticking and tocking of the clock resumed. So did the lights. Honestly, Hermione was so sick of falling. Tumbling weightlessly had started as a novel sensation, but now she longed to feel the ground. To have something solid and firm under her tightly laced boots. 

The falling girl almost missed seeing it, sulking as she was about not being able to wake herself. The large, oak desk soared upward at her and she flailed to the side, nearly missing having her face knocked in by the corner of it as it tumbled listlessly in it's upward ascent. A ink bottle followed next, the ink spilling up from the open bottle, it's perfect spheres of black floating so close to her eyeballs she could see the way the rainbow light glittered on their dark surfaces. Next was a masculine looking cologne in a dark grey glass bottle, followed by a set of all too familiar slippers, rough and well worn. The floated lazily upward some feet away from her as they passed. 

“Dad,” she murmured, seeing it all for what it was now. His desk, from his office. His love of writing, and reading, and how he'd taught her to love books and learning, all of it. Each nostalgic item whizzed by in a fleeting moment. Her eyes watched a fleet of upward falling books tumbling in the mess. Books they had both loved. Hermione fought to urge to pluck them from the air and clutch them to her chest. 

Really, she should have known from the cologne. It was his favorite, and once, as a child she'd snuck into his room and spilled a whole bottle of it prying through his things. It had smelled like him for years, long after he was gone, she'd cherished that spot. Until her mother decided to suddenly remodel that room. It seemed it was too painful, too hard for her mother to remember her father, or even see or hear or smell anything that reminded her of him. So it all had to go, and each part. His desk. His books. Even his old fashioned quill set. Each had taken a part of Hermione with it. 

This time, the light didn't brighten. There was no one memory of her father that summed up his loss. No singular time that it was awful that he was gone. Or any particular moment with him that was better or more regretful than any other, because there were too many inside her to count or rank. She couldn't chose. He was so much. More than any thought could summarize. It was a million of them, all mixed together.

The wound was too raw, too fresh, and her eyes filled with tears. She didn't want to think of her father, or what her future held without him in it. She kicked aside a dangerous assault of his dental instruments, using her boots to keep the shiny metal pieces from skewering her. 

The sound of a clock filled her ears to a much more demanding degree, it's ticking incessant and intoxicating. The tocks, though, jarred through her, and it was on one such tock that she found herself, abruptly, with no due warning or foresight, or even a true recollection of how, sitting on a patch of dying brown grass, the air dense with a lavender smog that surrounded her. There was no tick tock of the clock, and somehow, the abrupt silence seemed almost more deafening and worrisome than the obnoxious ticking ever had. 

The lavender hued mist was thin like regular fog up close, but lead to a very short sighted view from a distance, it's purple glow eerie with unfamiliarity. The air even smelled strange, like pungent floral perfume and old books. She looked around, seeing only one landmark, a sign right next to her person. White and painted with childish lettering it proclaimed: “Keep Off The Grass.” 

“Oh bloody hell, you just had to jump, didn't you Mudblood? Everyone wants to be a Alice, eh?” A very irked voice snapped, and Hermione scrambled back at the purplish fog parted in a swirl to reveal a approaching tall, blonde man, his eyes glinting a flinty silver as he curled his lip at her, his gait purposeful and posture flawless. A peculiar snake tattoo slithered down his forehead in inky tendrils, curling around his eye. Shocking white blond feathered haired crowned his head, his skin pale and eyes grey, lending him a bleached out appearance against the cloying purple mist. He was lean and menacing looking, pale and aristocratic with fine features and a pointed chin. 

“You're just like the others, and like them, you'll die,” he sneered, “I should kill you myself, the Dark Lord would want it.” The disdain, the arrogance, the snake mark on his face, and that voice…

“Weren’t you a rabbit?” She asked, aghast. Why was he suddenly human? Well, she eyed his long, white fluffy ears protruding from the top of his head in between his white blonde locks. Sort of human. The rabbit ears seemed to move and twitch just as if they were part of him.

“Draco Malfoy will do,” the rabbit eared man snapped, tilting his head at her he sneered down at her. He abruptly plucked his pocket watch from a smart silver vest, his attire that of a finely dressed lord. Tailored vest and coat, pressed breeches and shoes that gleamed with shine. “I don't have time for killing Mudbloods right now, lucky you.”

“Yes, you've said,” Hermione frowned at him, “You're late, right?” 

“Very, but I will tell you this, Mudblood who wants to be Alice,” he sneered. 

“”My name is Hermione,” she interrupted shortly, frowning at him, “Not Alice and certainly not Mudblood.” The way he said the word made it crawl on her skin, so obviously offensive, demeaning and cruel she couldn't help but deny it.

“Good for you,” he mocked with a smirk, “If you want to survive for more than the next five minutes, I might make a point.”

“Which is?” Hermione asked expectantly. “And what is a Alice, in any case?”

 

____*____

A/N: More to come. Feedback welcome. I feel I should give kudos where due, because while this fiction is obviously inspired by Harry Potter and Alice in Wonderland, it owes its plot bunny mojo also to the Alice in the Kingdom of Hearts comic series, a manga based off a video game and it's good. Lol. Ok. That's it for now. Review. Or at least give this fic a chance to mature, I'm just revving up my creative engines people.


	3. The First Door

Down A Hole  
By: Absinthe Dreams

 

"The maddest thing of all  
Might be the people who believe  
That they alone are the sane ones."

-Anonymous

 

Last time: 

“My name is Hermione,” she interrupted shortly, frowning at him, “Not Alice and certainly not Mudblood.” The way he said the word made it crawl on her skin, so obviously offensive, demeaning and cruel she couldn't help but deny it.

“Good for you,” he mocked with a smirk, “Although if you want to survive for more than the next five minutes, I might make a point.”

“Which is?” Hermione asked expectantly. “And what is a Alice, in any case?”

 

Ignoring her question entirely he smirked at her condescendingly, “Don't trust anyone, don't speak to anyone, and certainly don't take anything from anyone who's offers it freely. This isn't Wonderland anymore. It hasn't been for a while, anyway,” he shrugged, “This is Underland now, and the Dark Lord and the Queen of Spades rule all the kingdoms, no matter what anyone says. But since you asked so nicely, I’ll tell you this,” he uttered with a tight smile and near drawled sarcasm to the girl staring at him with too wide and innocent eyes, “Alice isn't a who it's more of a what. A little bit of a name that's mostly a legend, and you want to be it, if you find yourself capable of being anything here at all. Trust me.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Hermione asked curiously. Trying to make sense of his nonsense hurt her head. 

“Better to be told, than forced to learn the hard way, stupid Mudblood. Now, you better get to it. Go back if you can, and if you're not quick about it another one of me will be likely be along shortly to finish you off.”

“Another one of you, who?” Now he has me speaking in riddles, the bemused girl realized. Despite his disdain and obvious need to impress how stupid she was for not knowing basic things, he was quite engaging. 

“We all have our roles, Hermione-not-Alice. Mine is to be one of my Lord's Death Eaters, and my Queen’s White Rabbit.” He looked her up and down dryly, “Yours is likely to still die in the next five minutes despite my excellent advice.” He sighed and rolled his silver eyes, tapping his foot rapidly, almost like the animal he had first been. That's not logical, a part of Hermione pointed out to herself wryly. Rabbits turning into men didn't make logical sense, but then dreams didn't always make sense. 

“Sirius Black is a damned fool to bring you here. But that's his role. Him and his sodding games. He's as mad as they say. He knows the Dark Lord kills his champions, all of them, but he keeps bringing you in. Fat little lambs for the slaughter.”

“How awful, why would anyone do that?” She frowned, wondering who this Sirius Black was. 

Draco, a man with rabbit ears who had practically been spouting gibberish since his introduction, gave her a condescending look of exasperation. As if she were the annoyingly obtuse one. 

“That’s the wrong question and besides, I don't have time to explain all that, really. Figure it out for yourself Hermione-not-Alice, I have things to attend to,” he turned abruptly, walking into the purple mist. 

“Wait! How do I get back?!” She called, stumbling after him, but the terrain of dead grass and thistles slowed her, her footsteps tripping over ground that was both rough and foreign. Forcing her to pick her way slowly and carefully. He advanced quickly, seemingly unhindered by the terrain, leaving her behind, his complaints trailing behind him. 

“Not my fecking problem, is how... if he finds out I even spoke to a Mudblood he'll likely pluck out my eyes and cut out my tongue not to mention what he'll do to my other bits, better to have my head off by the Queen at that point, really...wait she says, as if I have the time…”

His voice faded off. She lost his trail. Still Hermione continued on, and as the purple mist dissipated, the grass grew taller and taller from the ground, until it was well above her head, obscuring her way, and her progress. Fighting through the thick of it, skirts clutched and features determined, the girl spilled out the other side and into a closed room. 

Hermione frowned, looking around at the plain space, brown walls and red tile, she turned behind her to return through the grass...and frowned at a black door against more brown walls and brick red flooring that certainly hadn't been there before. Where was the grass? The purple mist? Now she was in a closed room, with only a door before her, a shiny gold plaque at its side. 

With a shrug at the frivolous cast of her dreams, Hermione approached the door, squinting at the plaque to read the engraved words. They were almost worn off with age and time. 

Gryffindor:  
Your daring, nerve and chivalry  
Must be what sets you apart  
None shall pass through this door  
Who be faint of heart

Hermione puzzled over the words. Strange. Well, there was only this room, and the door before her. It was no great mystery where her dream would lead her next. Her hand reached for the handle, but a casual voice caused her to startle abruptly, turning in alarm. 

“I wouldn't do that if I were you,” his emerald eyes stood out, large and cat-like in his golden features. Messy chocolate hair brushed the stranger’s forehead, a long lavender and midnight blue striped tail swishing in agitation behind him. It matched the similarly furred ears peeking through his unruly mass of hair. A silver hoop pierced his left cat ear. 

“How else would you suggest I leave this place?” Hermione demanded, adding in shrewd afterthought, “How did you manage to get in?”

“In is just the same as out, and I'm always a bit of both,” the cat eared boy explained patiently, “You can't come the way I did, but you still shouldn't leave that way. It'll make you Alice, maybe, or kill you, most likely.”

“Excuse me, but everyone keeps saying Alice this, and Mudblood that,” his cat ears twitched at the second term, and he frowned. “I'm just trying to wake up from this dream, but no matter how hard I try…” Hermione stiffened, her body going ramrod straight at the peculiar stranger leaned in and began sniffing at her. Like a cat might smell the air around you, curious and matter-of-fact. 

“You've met the White Rabbit then,” he grimaced, “Lucky Malfoy didn't kill you, he's one of the Dark Lord's minions.”

“And you're not?” She surmised, giving up on getting much explanation from anyone at this rate. After all, dreams didn't always make sense. 

“No,” he recoiled, looking utterly offended. “I will never be loyal to him, or his false Queen.” He spit on the floor, crossed his eyes and uttered solemnly, hand planted over his heart, “May her clock rot.”

“Then, if you don't mind me asking, who are you?”

Harry looked the girl up and down, her black and red striped tights, her crimson dress with puffy sleeves and ruffled skirts, it was smeared with dirt and grass. She looked the part of tired raggamuffin, hair wild and eyes dull with worry and fatigue, surely this was no Alice, the door was here, but she'd never pass it's threshold. A nearly feline smirk lit his face. 

“I'm The Cheshire Cat, of course, it's my job to guide you, and I don't recommend going through that door,” He grinned widely, leaning over her in a familiar manner that would have appalled her Headmistress. “But if you insist on it, you should know the risk.”

“And what risk is that, Mr. Cat?”

He blinked, and then sighed, “My title is the Cheshire Cat, my name is Harry Potter, you may call me Harry, muggleborn.”

“What's a muggleborn?”

“As curious as me, eh?” Harry straightened and he sighed, “A muggleborn is a much nicer term for Mudblood, a foul slur the Dark Lord cooked up. You are a muggleborn, not a Alice, and so if you try and pass that door, you are sure to die.”

“You can't die in a dream.”

“I wonder, how do you know?” He cocked his head at her, “In any case, as the Cheshire Cat, I can send you back. You do want to go back, don't you?”

“Of course,” Hermione replied instantly, brightening at the prospect of escaping this confusing dream. Or at least dreaming of things that made sense. 

“Then eat this,” he dug into his pockets, coming up with a small yellow candy, it certainly didn't help it's appeal as he began picking lint and hair off the small offering. Her nose crinkled. 

“No, thank you.”

“It's a forfeit, lemon flavored, and I can only offer it once,” Harry's ears flattened, his tail twitching in agitation, “Don't be daft.”

“I don't want it,” Hermione closed his hand and pushed the candy back. Remembering the other fellow's warning not to eat anything here, or take anything freely given. The candy wasn't even tempting. Green eyes slitted in feline discontent. 

“Stupid, foolish, idiot girl. Even if you are Alice, which is unlikely, you're hardly a match for him. Once you pass that door, even if you don't die, the Dark Lord will know you're here in Underland and his Death Eaters will begin the hunt.” Harry tried to force the candy into her fingers, but the amber eyed girl stubbornly tossed the candy to the ground. It erupted into a cloud of smoke as it landed, dissipating after a few moments into nothing. 

“Now you've done it,” Harry ground his teeth, as he glared at the muggleborn, “Fine, go ahead and get yourself killed. See if I care.” With that, he began to waver, his image flickering like waning candle flame. 

“Oh bloody hell, I didn't mean it,” he looked down at his disappearing form in dismay, “I guess this is goodbye, for now, Miss Muggleborn.”

“It's Hermione,” she uttered, but it was too late, he was already gone and she was once again alone in the small room. 

“Right. Talking cat-man, bunny boy, what's next? A rat girl?” Hermione frowned at the door, pondering the curious man's warnings. In the end, however, she really only saw one logical outcome to her current predicament. Lightly, her fingers enclosed the handle, and she was surprised to feel a thrill of excitement pulse through her body. 

The hairs on her arms raised like needles, her breath sucking into her lungs in a sharp gasp as she gripped the cool gold knob and twisted. She found no resistance, the door opened almost without her pulling it, and Hermione gaped at the scene beyond. What's more, the people gaped back at her, equally shocked by her sudden appearance. 

A/N: Me again. Thanks for all the kind kudos, just knowing people took the time to read this bolsters my urge to keep posting. I know I'm falling short so far on smutty Tomione goodness. If you bear with me for the build up I promise to bring on the smolder. Until then, I hope you enjoy this chapter.


	4. The Heart Of Gryffindor

"There is no point in driving yourself mad trying to stop yourself going mad. You might just as well give in and save your sanity for later. In an age of madness, to expect to be untouched by madness is a form of madness."

-Douglas Adams

 

Down A Hole

By: Absinthe Dreams

Last Time: 

Lightly, her fingers enclosed the handle, and she was surprised to feel a thrill of excitement pulse through her body.

The hairs on her arms raised like needles, her breath sucking into her lungs in a sharp gasp as she gripped the cool gold knob and twisted. She found no resistance, the door opened almost without her pulling it, and Hermione gaped at the scene beyond. What's more, the people gaped back at her, equally shocked by her sudden appearance.

Now:

 

There was such a dizzy opulence about the space the door opened to, she found herself blinking stupidly for a moment, before a moue of determination alit her mouth. Striding through the threshold, the amber eyed girl felt something warm and familiar wrap over her. Like a blanket she'd held as a child but had long forgotten, yet just a squeeze of that texture, a hint of it's scent, washed her in a overwhelming feeling of nostalgia. It helped her feel slightly better at her ragged appearance into such a decadent scenery.

“Announcing Miss Hermione Granger, the twelve hundred and fortieth Alice,” a soft, airy female voice cut through the shocked silent throne room. It belonged to a girl with dreamy blue eyes, half lidded, she carried a cane which she used to lightly gesture towards Hermione with. Unnoticed, the door swung softly shut behind her of its own volition. 

Large white pillars held in a domed ceiling. The room itself crowded with cool eyed gentry, each dressed in a chaotic outlandish fashion. Her neck stretched slightly as she gaped in a fish like fashion at the ceiling of the room. The night sky twinkled overhead, held aloft by the white pillars, but it was not a sky she knew. The stars were too bright and close, planets and moons she didn't recognize easily visible in its inky expanse. 

The floor was a chessboard cascade of red and white squares, each colored marble slab larger than a person and leading up to a space that felt like it should have held a magnificent throne. Instead it held a brown leather lazy chair, a old man in bright red robes with a long tipped hat and grey hair down to his shoulders and a beard near to his belly, sat upon the chair. A gold crown with a single cut ruby in the center graced his temple, but other than that he seemed a affable grandfather, relaxing in his favorite chair and smoking a plain brown pipe. Periwinkle eyes twinkled magnanimously across the room of decadent red and white dressed courtiers before landing on the young girl with wild hair. 

“A pleasure Miss Granger, my name is Albus Dumbledore, Steward of Hearts.”

“It's nice to meet you at last. I think you're going to be simply wonderful, the best Alice yet,” Dressed in a man's suite, complete with a coat with tails and top hat, the serene looking woman peered at Hermione in dreamy satisfaction. “Yes, you'll do very nicely.”

“Luna, do give the girl a moment to collect herself,” the man in the recliner suggested lightly, a bemused note to his tone. “She did just pass through her very first door, and she looks as if the journey was taxing.”

“Not for her, the doors are hers to pass through, it's the journey to them that takes such a toll,” Luna murmured, giving Hermione a small, secret smile, her white gloved fingers lightly griped Hermione's own. It didn't feel uncomfortable, this gesture of immediate friendship, despite her oddities, the girl made Hermione feel this deep peace, and that too, was almost familiar. She stared up at the taller blonde girl in wonder and confusion. 

“Welcome home, Hermione Granger,” Luna squeezed her fingers around hers and pecked the girls soft freckled cheek, her smile was as soft as kittens and clouds, “We have been waiting a long time.”

“It seems you've charmed my Dormouse, Miss Granger,” the old man seemed equally bemused and miffed, “A feat none so far can claim.”

“She’s here to play the game.”

Hermione froze, turning away from the strange, kind eyed girl in man's clothes to stare at the voice she'd been hearing more and more lately. It just seemed so off, because this time it hadn't seemed to come from inside her head, but from behind her person. Sure enough, there he stood, but if pressed she couldn't say how, exactly, she picked him from the crowd of people leisurely gathered around the throne. It was simply him, and she knew it. 

“Sirius, my dear boy,” the man in the chair chided, looking uneasy, “Did you bring this girl here?” 

The man with long, scraggly hair and a face of sharp features and engaging eyes was dressed more finely than any other in the room. His coat was a fine purple leather, such craftsmanship she had never seen in person, the color especially vivid and startling in a sea of red and white. His vest and shirt was black, with silver stitching, the ruffled sleeves pooling through his leather jacket to encase his wrists and bejeweled fingers. His dark grey eyes danced with mirth, although no one else seemed amused. He was also, the very voice she'd been hearing in her head.

“Yes,” he grinned, looking rather cheeky as the elder man frowned down at him. Slate grey eyes landed on the girl standing in front of the giant red doors that seemingly lead to nowhere, the other side now empty, no room, just air. Sirius’ expression brightened almost ferally in delight. 

“Oh. You are here, I was afraid I was dreaming again. I’ve been dying to ask, and it seems as if Dumbly is set on being quite serious, but I simply must know,” his voice was eager, his stride taking up the space between them as he spoke, a nearly fanatical gleam in his eye. 

He pulled a card out of thin air, plucking it from the space above her left ear and holding it much too close to her face for proper inspection. 

“Is this your card?”

Hermione frowned, stepping back and looking at the glossy play card held dramatically aloft in Sirius’ hand, the Ace of Spades, all the girl could manage was to stare in bewilderment. Was she supposed to know what he was talking about?

“I don't know,” she evaded politely, he seemed to be quite mad. There was a decidedly unhinged look in his pewter grey eyes, a manic feeling to his speech and movements. Deflating, and looking as if he was a small boy who was forced to watch as his puppy get kicked, the full grown man pouted as a child would, chin jutted, arms crossed. 

“Well if you don't know, I suppose you can't say, but I really thought this was your card, I was nearly certain of it,” he mumbled in petulant disappointment, staring at the card as if it could be blamed for his sudden upset. Luna stepped forward, offering her comfort in the form of a pat on his shoulder. 

“There, there, it's not time for all that yet, silly Sirius,” Luna consoled the sulking man, “Go and have some tea, and in time you'll remember when you are at the right moment, and I'll make sure you speak then.”

“It seems so obvious, so now...” the man sighed, “But if you say so, it must be so, mustn't it?”

“Just so, and yet not always will it be, or has it ever been, but at this particular time you must trust me,” Luna embraced the man and he stood there, allowing her hug, but not returning the gesture. She leaned in, whispering something in the taller man's ear and standing on the tip of her toes to do so. 

“A pot of tea does sound nice,” he allowed. Luna beamed at him, and he shuffled off, the entire court watching as the Mad Hatter took his leave. 

“I'm afraid Sirius is not what he was,” the old man explained sadly, “You must forgive him, dear girl, I'm sure he had no idea what it was he did, bringing you here in such a turbulent time.”

“I’m sorry,” Hermione began carefully, aware of so many sets of eyes focused on her, “but here is where, exactly?”

His smile was creased with sadness, he placed down his pipe and gave her a pitying look. “Here, my dear, is a subjective term, not an exact one. For instance, here is what was once known as Wonderland, a sanctuary and testing ground, but here is also Underland, a land upturned by war and darkness. Here could be said to be the Kingdom of Hearts, the land of Gryffindor, or merely my throne room. The question is not so simple.”

“Forgive me sire, but we can't harbor a Alice, the Burrow can barely fend off the border as it is,” a lean boy spoke, his hair the color of carrots and a pair of rabbit ears falling from his head. His ears were fluffier than the other man's had been, more likely from a long haired breed. His features were broad and freckled, as he turned towards her she saw his face more cleary. Hermione gasped as she recognized his warm brown eyes, his build, even the disgruntled cast to his features. But of course it wasn't truly Ronald Weasley, because this was only a dream. Still, the similarity was jarring. This Ronald was just a tad taller, with oranger hair and of course, fluffy grey rabbit ears. 

“Ronald, my boy, we won't turn away anyone in need of our help,” Dumbledore spoke in his usual gravelly kind tone. The March Hare crossed his arms in a surly pout but offered no further comment, although his fluffy ears twitched in irritation as he crossed his arms and adopted a mutinous expression. 

“Now, you must have come a awfully long way, to be here so soon after coming to our world,” Dumbledore offered kindly, “Perhaps you'd like to rest and freshen up?”

Hermione looked bashfully down at her grass stained dress and dirt smeared skin and boots. 

“That would be lovely.” Dream or not, a bath sounded nice, this was by far the most vivid dream she'd ever had. She felt tired, and dirty, sweat drying on her skin and her eyelids drooping. Navigating the long grass had been no easy task, and she'd faced so many shocks in such a short time she could barely hold on to her senses. 

“You are welcome here, dear child,” Dumbledore assured her, smiling magnanimously down at her from the dias on which his old recliner perched. “It may be a dark time you find us in, but all who pass through the Gryffindor have always had sanctuary in the Kingdom of Hearts.”

“All hail Dumbledore, Steward of Hearts!” Every person in the room spoke the words at once, their voices a booming chorus. 

“Perhaps when you feel better rested, we may speak again,” he gestured idly and two people came to escort her from the room, due to their matching uniforms, so much less fine than the courtiers costumes, she judged them to be servants. Peculiarly, each had a suite of cards designed on their tunics, the man, with his large brown eyes and hooked nose had a seven of hearts stitched into his large white square tunic, and the girl with her lank brown hair and watery blue eyes wore a four of hearts on hers. 

“Dobby and Mimsy, Miss Alice,” the man spoke once they'd left the stifling watchful eyes of the throne room. “We will be helping you to your rooms, and getting you whatever you may need or want, Miss Alice.”

“Call me Hermione.”

The man almost spasmed, fingering his numbered tunic nervously as he turned towards his counterpart in alarm before looking back to her and swallowing audibly.

“Miss Alice being your title, and no face card can be saying a Alice's name, no,” he shook his head seriously, “Not allowed.”

“What he saying be true,” Mimsy added sternly, “Miss is a Alice, and Alice be noble, no mere peasant can be saying their names.”

“Let us show you your rooms,” Dobby suggested brightly, “The Alice rooms are second only to King Dumbledore's.”

“Miss will have a bath, Miss Alice needs it, Mimsy will fetch hot water from the kitchens.” The blonde girl informed her, despite the droop of her stature and the lankness of her hair and face she seemed quite determined. She curtseyed quickly and strode off. 

 

A/N: So you know when you have a plot bunny and it grows into a plot rabbit? That's this story. I've outlined everything but it keeps growing bigger and bigger the more I write. It may eat me. If I don't write, I've been devoured. Send help. Just kidding, I would totally keep writing in the belly of the beast. Regular updates to follow this chapter, promise. To everyone who kudos this story, I heart you too, to my only and therefore best ever commenter keeping an eye on this story, bless you, please stalk it.


	5. Bonus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: You might be wondering why this chapter is just called "Bonus" or why it doesn't have much length. It's certainly not like I meant to post it with the last chapter and forgot...oh wait. Yup. That's what happened. So instead of editing chapter five I'm going with the word "bonus".

Down A Hole

By: Absinthe Dreams

 

The world she found herself in certainly wasn't the one she was familiar with. Every moment Hermione began to forget, lulled into a false sense of security by things vaguely familiar, such as a bed, even if the four poster monstrosity was so unlike the small bunk she occupied in Hogwarts. A dresser and vanity and wash basin, although these were so fine and grand she had never touched anything of their like. Dobby's nervous chattering, ever so polite and formal like the nobles well trained servants were at home, despite his tendency to drift off abruptly and apologize or reference things he expected her to know but she did not, was a soothing balm. He bowed to her, showing her the grand suite, no less than three rooms linked together in a neat chain. A drawing room, a sitting room and finally her bed and bath chamber combined as one large space that lay beyond her sitting room.

Lost in the monotony of the eager servant’s bragging of the fine fixtures and elegance she was to expect as this strange Steward's guest, the brown eyed girl felt her mouth flop open in a very unladylike display of aplomb, amber eyes comically widened as the other servant returned from fetching water. As matter of fact as the nose on a person's face, Mimsy brought with her enough water to fill the tub. As in a great gob of it, steaming hot, if the misty tendrils escaping the warbling orb of water were to be trusted. A large mass that was floating mid air after the woman. No buckets, no tedious hauling, just a magnificent blob of water surrounded by nothing.

“E-excuse me,” Hermione interrupted Dobby's enthusiastic description of the curtains, down to the thread used to stitch them, and the hooked nose man waited politely for her to continue. 

“Is that water, er- levitating?” Her breathy words bellied the disbelief in which she held such a statement. 

“Tis a basic spell,” Mimsy scoffed, “As a Alice, you can do much more.” Gulping, the girl eyed them both in stunned alarm. 

“I can not,” she denied, almost defensively. Is this what they thought of her then? That she was capable of such feats? Of things that appeared for lack of a better word, to be done by magic?

Mimsy curtseyed lowly, “Begging your pardon, Miss Alice, but you can. Else the Gryffindor would have struck you dead. I saw it myself, with the last one.” She shuddered, before pointing to the tub, where the hot water immediately bobbed to, before it poured itself into the tub in a soft, steady stream. Hermione's mind boggled over such convenience. If only it was real and not just a product of her imagination. 

“Don’t listen to her, Miss. A Miss Alice shouldn't hear about thems that lost their way,” Dobby advised, “They weren't Alices, no, not Alices at all.”

“Just so,” Mimsy nodded, before adding seriously, “You has shown the Miss enough of the fixtures and rooms, Miss be needing a bath. The Mad Hatter wants to see her, as soon as soon is possible, he says.”

Dobby eyed the curious eyed girl standing between him and Mimsy in alarm, “Mustn't keep the Hatter waiting, Miss, he is rarely in one time or place for very long.”

“So he is mad, then, that man Steward Dumbledore called Sirius? That's who you mean, is it not?” Hermione clarified. 

“Yes Miss, he be the one, but he wasn't always Mad, the Hatter,” Dobby confided, brown eyes mournful. “Once he was just Hatter.” 

“Shush, we not supposed to speak of such things. Thems nobles business,” Mimsy chided sternly. Dobby flinched, and then hung his head. 

“Don’t worry, I'm not offended,” she assured the man, rewarded as he brightened right back up. Sure, he was over fifty if he was a day, but something about his manner and speech was almost enduringly childlike. 

“You is being my favorite Alice,” Dobby beamed at her, “Dobby will bring you cake.”

“Soup first, or else you be giving Miss a tummy ache, and only after she be seeing the Mad Hatter.”

“Of course!” Dobby smiled widely at Hermione, “After the Hatter and the soup, Dobby promises.”

“Yes, yes, now shoo,” Mimsy instructed. “Miss needs her bath.”

 

______-*-_______

A/N: Not long at all, I know. Just a tid bit that was supposed to be at the end of the last chapter. Watching my kudos jump up after posting chapter four stopped my heart with joy, and then my muse slapped me and told me to keep writing...long story short I'm better now and you guys rock. Thanks everyone!!


	6. A Sirius Game

"Oh the places you'll go!  
There is fun to be done!  
There are points to be scored.  
There are games to be won.  
And the magical things you can do with that ball  
Will make you the winning-est winner of all.”

-Dr. Seuss “Oh, the Places You'll Go!”

 

Down A Hole 

By: Absinthe Dreams

 

As a tradesman's daughter rubbing elbows with the daughters of aristocratic girls bred to be polite and docile from birth, Hermione Granger knew all too well what it was like to be alone in a sea of strangeness. That same feeling had assaulted her when Hermione first attended Hogwarts Preparatory. Alone and outnumbered, with no good breeding attached to her name and far too well read to fit in with the other simpering girls. She remembered that first taste of true loneliness in her life like the keenest blade. Adrift in this strange world, a nostalgic pang of that same aloneness struck her, although this time there would be no Ginny to soothe it. To laugh and be reckless and forgive her every oddity and social faux paus. 

This alienation she faced alone. 

Hermione held her head high, her skin freshly scrubbed, curls as wild and frizzy as ever, and her red and black garb cleaned, pressed and returned to her person. All was accomplished by magic, most of which was performed by Mimsy, who still insisted Hermione could do it as well. Hermione had lived seventeen years without accomplishing a hint of magic, so she felt rather inclined to disagree with the well meaning servant on that point. 

Talk to the Hatter, Mimsy had advised knowingly, then you will see. 

See what, exactly? Now, that was a question. One Mimsy hadn't answered. The lank haired maid merely shrugged and resumed her duties. Muttering something about only nobles knowing such things. 

So here she was, at the forefront of the seeing. The chambers of the Mad Hatter himself, Sirius Black. Alongside her was a peculiar entourage, a bright eyed blonde dressed in man's attire, complete with top hat, and a irked looking green eyed man who's purple blue tail swished in agitation. 

“Just because I'm following you, doesn't mean I've forgiven you, do you have any idea how hard forfeits are to come by?” Harry grumbled, slitting his emerald eyes at her. His tail was swishing in a familiar agitation Crookshanks often displayed. 

“Shh, we've entered. Remember your part Harry. The Alice needs to speak to him, and now, and I mean only now and never then or later, will do.” Luna pushed at Hermione, forcing the girl to stumble into the richly furnished office, cheeks stained with embarrassment as she righted herself. The girl's fingers self consciously clenched in her skirts, her high laced boots toeing anxiously at the carpet in a nervous fidget. 

“Right, well, I suppose you're erm...the Hatter?” It seemed impolite to call anyone mad, even if they were, and Hermione was hardly impolite if she could help it. 

“I suppose, if must be,” the figure in purple and satin black finery turned from where he stood by large window letting in the afternoon light. His grape colored hat askew on his tangled sandy brown hair, eyes a cunning silver, but they sagged with deep purple bags beneath them. His mouth twitched, as if he was always fighting a compulsive mad grin. 

“You wanted to speak with me?” 

“Did I?” He mused, casually slinging himself across one of the many cushy looking sofas in the room. The Hatter's room gave off a very golden glow, warm and rich tones saturated the atmosphere in the form of glossy wooden furnishings, lush brown rugs, and many golden wall sconces that emitted a light all together different than torchlight. It felt warmer, somehow. Certainly it held more appeal than the castle's gleaming ivory corridors with their stark crimson tapestries the held a sort of stark intimidation about them. Once inside, the study slash workshop hummed with buttery light and the tense girl felt herself relax with a determined exhale.

“Ask him your questions, you must have so many now that you're here,” Luna suggested to the curly haired girl serenely, walking towards the giant gleaming wood table that was filled with various scientific instruments and other devices Hermione couldn't begin to fathom at. 

Somehow, the cane toting girl managed to locate a teapot in the disarray, freshly brewed, and a array of cups and saucers which she began to fill. This task was made more manageable as the Dormouse matter of factly shrank her cane until it was roughly the length of a small stick, and began twirling it and speaking gibberish as the cups and other essentials moved on their own accord. The out of sorts Hermione attempted not to gape too grotesquely at the display of casual magic. 

“Ah, yes,” Hermione eyed her companions uneasily before voicing her most earnest question. “Am I dreaming?”

“You are and you aren't.” Sirius shrugged listlessly, staring at something above her left shoulder, “A dream ends abruptly. This one has a purpose and ends in it's own time. When the game finishes. In it's own way. Win or lose.” 

Hermione's brow furrowed, her focus solely on the indolent man in purple hat and sleek black suit, “You said that before, that this was a game. Cards, I think. So is it possible that when I lose the game I will simply return and be free of this place?”

Her mind whirled at the ideal, “That is to say, could one lose on purpose, then, and return to where they were?”

There is a look of infinite sadness upon his face could suck away a person's breath as the Hatter breathed the word “No.” He shuttered his gaze and sighed in a world weary manner, “To lose this game is to give something up, something invaluable to you. Whether it be your life, or happiness or spirit…”

“You can't lose and be free of it. It isn't the type of game that doesn't change you. When you agreed to play you knew that, but I've made you forget,” Sirius frowned and turned to snap at Luna in a abrupt shifting of mood, “Is that tea about finished?!”

“Yes, almost,” Luna hummed in a whimsical way that suggested she was used to his outbursts. 

“You made me forget something?” Hermione demanded of Sirius in alarm. She didn't care for the idea of that. That there was something missing from her own head and she hadn't any idea what it could be. 

“Many somethings,” Sirius clarified with a smirk, that slowly warbled into a large grin. His mouth twitching madly again, silver eyes swirling. 

“Why?” 

“Why not?” He challenged in a cheeky manner, “You seemed all for it at the time. Although I suppose you would have to remember to know, and once you know, it is possible you may remember, but not yet. No. Not now.” He checked himself, silver eyes skittering down they found his twitching hand where he held a branch not unlike the shrunken cane the Dormouse had. It was shaking. Slightly, but she saw the effort he made to still the tremor. It seemed monumental. 

“Is there a spot of tea to be had here?” 

“In a moment, you're almost done,” Luna chided, adding a few lumps of sugar here and there amongst the cups, of which Hermione noted there were only two and a dollop of cream when necessary. 

“You brought me here, didn't you?” Hermione pressed, able to gather that much on her own. 

“You brought yourself here. I merely supplied a path.”

“Alright, but why? What am I to do?” The frustrated young woman asked as plainly as possible, hoping for some sort of direction. He was talking her in circles, and this was the man everyone assured her had answers? So far he'd been maddeningly vague. 

“Why? That, I can not tell you. But why not? Have you considered that at all? Why not try and play, Hermione?” His demeanor shifted as he spoke. Suddenly pressing forward in his recliner with a magnetic if not somewhat manic eagerness, “After all, this game, this world, was made for you. To test you. To better you.”

“And any other Alice. The world is made for all those who have magic but live in a magicless world. Once you defeat the Dark Lord, it will be Wonderland again, a paradise for those who are Alice.” 

His silver eyes glimmered with hope, giving his expression a more roguish and youthful cast than his usual mad eyed derangement. “You must see it. Can't you see it?” 

The silence stretched, the bright eyed girl's expression froze forcibly into its most polite cast of interest. It was a expression she often used when her classmates peppered her teachers with questions she already knew the answer to, but couldn't speak out loud without suffering her peers scorn. 

“No, I'm afraid not,” Hermione denied after a long moment, perhaps too long, of the charade. Sirius exhaled into a dejected slump, pulling his succulent leather top hat over his eyes as he leaned back into the seat. 

“Your tea, Lord Hatter,” Luna handed him the cup, and despite not being able to see the tea cup and saucer, he grasped both easily, as if sensing their exact location. He plucked it from the air and raised the delicate china to his lips, pinky up, before sucking in an absurdly noisy slurp. His hat slouched so low it touched the bridge of his nose, covering his forehead and eyes completely from view, but she could see the way his lips twitched in a repressed manic grin. 

“About. Bloody. Time.” he slumped back, slurping his tea occasionally and acting petulant and dejected. 

“He'll be like that for a while,” Luna advised, taking a loud sip of tea herself before smacking her lips and tossing the cup and saucer over her shoulder. It shattered, creating quite the mess of tea and broken china before dissolving into nothing. “No help for it then. Time for you to meet the carrots, I suppose.”

The blonde nodded to herself in agreement, “They'll have to be the ones to help you with your magic now that Sirius is indisposed. I had hoped he'd last a bit longer ”

“Carrots?” 

“It's what everyone calls them, the Burrow Brigade. Dumbledore said you should meet them proper. The Mad March was in a right fit about a new Alice,” Luna mused lightly, “Ronald might be a but blood thirsty at first, all carrots are, but they're quite all right. You'll see.”

“I'm sure…” Hermione eyed the man who embodied the voice in her head and bid him a worried farewell as Luna practically dragged her from the room in escort. She had barely got to ask any questions at all!

“Why weren't you visible in there?” Hermione asked Harry as he popped up abruptly, propelling her other elbow in the large white marble halls that separated the rooms in the castle.

“Sirius needed to focus on you,” Harry explained, tail swishing at a more lax pace. 

“And he finds that hard to do in Harry's presence,” Luna added in airy punctuation at her left elbow. A dual escort was as cumbersome as it sounded. Both of Hermione's arms were gripped quite tightly in Luna and Harry's as they lead the black and red garbed girl down the echoing pearly white hall. 

“Why?” She turned her head this way and that, unsure who, if either, would answer.

“Oh, because the Harry is the only living child of a Alice named Lily and a Underlander of course. And more importantly, the death of Harry's parents is what drove the Hatter to madness.” Luna frowned to herself, “For some reason their deaths greatly affected the Hatter.”

“I'm sorry,” Hermione mumbled towards the green eyed boy with peculiar colored cat ears and tail. His ears flattened but his expression remained stiffly bored. 

“For what?” He asked blankly. 

“For you know, your parents and all that.”

Harry blinked, green eyes slitting. “Did you kill them?” 

“No.”

He frowned in confusion, “Then why are you sorry?” 

“Er…” Hermione considered the sentiment carefully for the first time, “You know, I don't know exactly, it's something you say when someone dies. You tell the person who lost them your sorry for their loss. It's meant to be sympathetic.”

“I don't know that word.” Harry sniffed in a almost feline manner.

“It means to see things from another's point of view, to try and imitate what they feel. I imagined you feeling bad and so I felt bad for you,” she explained patiently. 

“Ridiculous,” he proclaimed easily, “you hardly knew them and you barely know me. How could you know what to feel?” His silver ear piercing winked at her from his purple and blue cat ear as he turned his face away, words ground out uncomfortably through his teeth. 

“Still, it must be hard, to lose both your parents.” Hermione bit her lip, trying hard not to think of her father and failing, “I lost just one and it was very painful.”

“I don't remember them, so what difference does it make?” Harry frowned at her after a moment of confused study, his cat ears perked back up, emerald eyes glinting as he made a sudden decision. “You’re different from the other Alices.”

“Have you known a lot of Alices?” Hermione wanted to know. The green eyed cat boy contemplated it for a long moment. 

“Not for very long, they die so quickly now,” he mused with a grimace. He blinked once and muttered in a bashful stammer, “Not that- you know- not that I think that'll happen to you...I mean, like I said, you're different.”

“Thanks, I suppose.” 

“You're welcome.”

“Don't worry,” the blonde Luna squeezed her fingers on the ivory gloved grip she had on the irritated girl's elbow, “Harry is right, you are different, I feel it too. I expect he'll be your first knight, but you'll need more, of course.”

“I never agreed to be anyone's knight,” Harry scowled, “The Cheshire Cat never takes a side. I'm on every side, and no side, and that's fine by me.”

“Hmm,” Luna hummed with a knowing and distant smile, “Its true, in all the games that were, in the Wonderland that was, the Cheshire Cat has never been on the board, but this game is different.”

The green eyed cat boy frowned more deeply, before he eyed the amber eyed girl looking between them in perplexity and shrugged as if to physically remove her scrutiny. “This is Underland now,” Harry observed, “There won't be another champion as long as the false Queen reigns, and with the Dark Lord at her side she is impossible to defeat.”

Luna made a thoughtful sound, almost humming, flicking her stick so that it became a cane once more before she murmured in her whisper dream voice, “As long as she reigns many things seem impossible, don't they?”

____*_____

A/N: I struggled hard with editing this chapter, fingers crossed that it gets the plot points I wanted to across while still being enjoyable to read. For those of you wondering where the Tom is in this Tomione, never fret, he will make a cameo next chapter. Until then, just know your kudos feed my muse and she writes better when she's not hangry.


	7. The Puppet Queen

"I'm headed straight for the castle  
They wanna make me their queen  
And there's an old man sitting on the throne that's saying that I probably shouldn't be so mean."

\- Hasley "Castle"

 

Down A Hole

By: Absinthe Dreams

 

Then:

“This is Underland now,” Harry observed, “There won't be another champion as long as the false Queen reigns, and with the Dark Lord at her side she is impossible to defeat.”

Luna made a thoughtful sound, almost humming, flicking her stick so that it became a cane once more before she murmured in her whisper dream voice, “As long as she reigns many things seem impossible, don't they?”

 

Now:

 

Bellatrix Lestrange had always known she was going to be a important piece in the game. From the first vicious tick of her clock beating in her chest, the first tick-tock that brought her to new life, she had known she was meant to be Queen. She was never wrong. They'd come for at her eleventh year, and crowned her the Queen of Spades, and it seemed impossible to envision Spades not being the high suite, the one that ruled the others. Who could possibly be a better, stronger Queen than her? No one. That's who. 

But then that ginger bitch had come along. 

No matter. Her Dark Lord had rid her of that blight. The bitch Queen of Hearts was dead thanks to Voldemort, and now her doddering official sat on her throne in the dead Queen's place, standing a lonely vigil until the next Queen of Hearts came of age. A feat that could take years. 

Finally, Spades was the high suite, none dared challenge her, she was the most powerful, terrifying ruler in the four kingdoms. Especially with her Lord at her side. Guiding her. Killing for her. All she had to do was serve his cause without question or complaint. Oh, and gift him what Death Eaters he wished, and then her Lord was generous to her, indulgent, although she would never go as far as to say kind. No, Voldemort was not kind at all. 

Bellatrix swallowed a mad cackle. Her Lord was magnanimous, beautiful and sharp like a well honed knife made flesh, but his generosity and cool temper fled during one occurrence. There was but one blight on his remote countenance. Alices. They turned all that cold detachment into a blazing fiend fire of murderous rage. 

The black haired Queen with eyes as shiny and predatory as a raven's, and a face as pale and delicately crafted as fine china, tapped her ruby red bottom lip with one black painted nail and considered her seething Dark Lord. 

“What do you mean,” danger and menace coated him in a fine manner, livening his features in snarl of his mouth, a insidious gleam of his impossibly dark blue eyes. “you saw the Alice?” 

He circled the rabbit man, who was trying his best not to twitch his entire body in fear, blood already dribbling from his mouth from the last bought of punishment. His silken white rabbit ears sagged over his forehead dejectedly, grey eyes haggard as he fought to remain kneeling as was required. If he fell, he would be given a death sentence. Her rules were absolute. That's what made a strong Queen. 

“Make him bleed again!” Bellatrix clapped, laughing in a shrill giggle. A look from her Lord and she flinched into a sullen pout. 

“I was v-very late-” Draco began again, only to nearly bite off his tongue as Voldemort pointed at him, beginning the torture anew, he didn't even need a wand. Her White Rabbit twitched madly, limbs dancing and twisting, expression agonized even as he fought to clamp his jaw shut against the howls of pain he knew would annoy his Queen. Or so he thought.

It was a game she and her Dark Lord played. Voldemort caused such exquisite pain it was as if the person he chose to bestow his attention on was being flayed alive, over and over again. Bellatrix forbid any screams, not because she minded the mindless sound of agony, no, it was actually quite soothing, but it was part of the fun. Watching them desperately trying not to scream while her Lord did everything he could to make them do so. Watching them fight not to fall from their kneeling stance, even as their muscles felt like puddles of lava. Their bones as solid as jelly, too insubstantial to hold them aloft. Until they bled and things inside them began to snap and pop. Until the pain grew unbearable and they tumbled to the floor or howled their misery. How sweet that moment was. When all their forbearance amounted to nothing in the end. 

Sadly, her Rabbit had much practice with not screaming and not falling. He wouldn't likely crack now. Not so soon. Pity… it had been too long since she had a decent beheading. This morning’s affair had been dull, just a bunch of servants that annoyed her. Hardly worth the effort of the chopping blade. 

“I am very disappointed in you, Draco,” her Lord murmured softly. He was most deadly soft. Soft and whispering like a snake slipping in to strike. 

“P-please, my Lord,” Draco bubbled out, mouth drooling blood. “I will find her and kill her for you,” he promised hoarsely, blood dribbling out in a steady trickle as he shakingly forced out his desperate plea, “please, m-my Lord, I swear.”

“Tsk,” just the click of his tongue and the whole room held its breath. Even Bellatrix herself. Such was the power of Dark Lord Voldemort. 

“Never say I'm not generous,” the blue eyed devil uttered almost tenderly, “I'll give you the span of five time changes to do so, and not a time longer.”

“T-that's-!” the blonde Rabbit swallowed his own words noisily, and possibly another mouthful of blood as well, “Thank you, My Lord, you are too generous,” he mumbled meekly, despair tinging his tone. 

“Tell me, Rabbit,” Bellatrix was feeling left out, and she didn't like to be ignored. It wasn't Queenly. “How did you find this Alice? Seeing as she passed through Gryffindor’s door already, we are most curious.”

“Ugly, your majesty, and plain, I don't know how she made it through the door, she seemed like a regular Mudblood to me.”

“Well, now you've learned a valuable lesson, haven't you?” Her Lord eyed the bleeding man with cold calculation that made her palms tingle in excitement, “It doesn't matter if you think it's a Alice or not, next time you won't hesitate kill it. Mudbloods aren't fit to live.”

“Yes, my Lord,” the Rabbit wobbled to his feet, looking much worse for the wear. He wouldn't recover in five time lapses, and fetching the Alice from the safety of the Heart kingdom was no easy task. He'd be dead shortly. Either by her Lord, or by one of those putrid Gryffindor citizens. Bellatrix sincerely hoped in her dark heart that the blonde ponce came crawling back without the Alice, she did so love to watch Voldemort at his most ruthless. It was absolutely terrifying. Which was just wonderful. 

“Dismissed, all of you,” and only her Lord could order such a thing in her court and not suffer her wrath. Her dark, sweet Lord, crafted of the things nightmares grew of. Bathed in blood and indifference, with a delightful chunk of black ice as a heart and cruelty in his most genuine smile. Such a beautiful creature, and he was hers. Just like she was his.

“He won't make it,” Bellatrix cackled after the doors swung shut behind her messenger and many Death Eaters that truly belonged more to Voldemort than her, as well as her prized court of heinous sycophants who she absolutely adored. 

“He will do exactly as I intend him to do, and sacrifice himself as a excellent distraction,” he uttered coldly. “You don't truly believe I'd leave the matter of a Alice in his inept hands, do you?” Dark eyes bore into her, peeling her apart in the most deliciously piercing manner. 

“No, of course not, my Lord,” she demurred, “You always know what's best.”

“Yes,” he smirked, “I do. Now Bella,” he never used the proper titles, her Lord, and yet even she was forbidden from calling his given name aloud. Only ever My Lord, or Voldemort. “Be a dear and make sure no one notices my absence. Reign havoc. Distract them. It is imperative no one knows I've left. If anyone asks, I'm in my dungeons.”

Bellatrix nodded eagerly, a wild grin stretching her red mouth as her black curls crackled with her excited magic. “My pleasure, my Lord.”

He gave her purred words little notice other than a distracted nod, his face focused in a reptilean intensity she recognized from his confronting the other Alices. This one had upset him very much. It had been so long since a Mudblood made it to their first door, and rightfully so, their kind didn't deserve to tarnish Underland soil with their rotted mortality. Now one such creature had done so in less time than almost any other. Her Lord's fury wouldn't be quenched until he wrang the life from the usurping Mudblood sow in person. 

Bellatrix sighed wistfully, her own nails lightly raking her throat as she vividly imagined such a decadent image. It was a shame she couldn't be there to see the actual moment in person. Voldemort was delightfully cruel when provoked, and nothing incited him quite like a Alice. Pity, but at least he'd left her with a desirable task. 

“Bring me fifteen of the servant children,” The Queen of Spades ordered once she'd resummoned her court. Bellatrix smiled wickedly as the servant she ordered paled and stumbled in his bow to do as she commanded. She usually spared the young ones, but her Lord had been quite specific. She was to be distracting. No one would be thinking of much else besides her next court executions, she imagined. He would be so pleased. 

 

A/N: Well there's your first glance at the Dark Lord aka Tom. I hope you stay tuned for more. I should point out, the summary of this story may be misleading. It's sort of a plot perspective told solely from Hermione's version of events, and I'm debating changing it. As always, each and every kudos you guys gave was amazing. Thanks for sticking this out through a long build up. It means the world to me.


	8. A Deadly Game

Down A Hole

By: Absinthe Dreams

"You're magic white rabbit  
Has left it's writing on the wall  
We follow, like Alice  
And just keep diving down the hole..."

\- "White Rabbit" -Nightcore

 

“What's wrong with this one?” The March Hare mumbled out of the corner of his mouth to the Cheshire Cat, flickering a uneasy gaze at the strange girl staring at him unceasingly. 

“I don't know, she wasn't like this before you came,” Harry shrugged. 

“I can hear you both, you know,” Hermione pointed out archly, a light flush to her face at being caught out staring so rudely and obviously. It was only just…how could Ronald Weasley be here? With fluffy and disconcerting rabbit ears of his own, no less. 

“You remind me very much of someone I know,” she explained, eyeing him in shrewd assessment, “He even has the same name.”

“Well, I'm not the first March Hare,” he dismissed, misunderstanding which name she meant, “but I don't know any Alices. The false Queen has them all killed in short order,” he, Harry and Luna spit at the ground unison, crossed their eyes and murmured with their hands over their hearts,

“May her clock rot.” Their strange chorus made Hermione frown. What a peculiar phrase. 

“Killed?” The amber girl asked in mild alarm. 

“Yeah, that's what the Death Eaters do, they kill any muggleborn or Alice who enters Underland. Lucky you didn't enter Slytherin's door first, you'd have been dead straight off,” the March Hare informed her, “The kingdom of Spades is no place for a Alice, and the Burrow is right on the border between our kingdom and theirs, so mind you don't stray off and end up getting killed.”

“I met a Death Eater already,” The know it all girl couldn't help but point out, stubbornly ignoring the idea of being killed. Even if she died here she would simply wake up, one couldn't truly be harmed in a dream. 

Ron gaped like a codfish, while Harry eyed her in keen disapproval. Luna was too preoccupied to notice Hermione's announcement. Especially distracted as she was at that moment, whispering something to a patch of wild pansies growing alongside the path. The tux sporting girl had previously informed her companions that forest flowers had all the best gossip. A fact no one disputed on their way down the winding dirt path. A thin divet in wilderness that lead away from the castle and through a thick wood. Luna had been thoroughly distracted ever since. Uneasily, her bushy haired companion tried not to notice that it seemed as if the flowers were indeed moving and speaking back, their petals forming the impressions of eyes and mouths. Whatever they said, though, was spoken so softly the blonde girl had to crouch at their beds to hear it. 

“If you'd met a Death Eater, you'd be a lot less alive than you are at present,” the lookalike Ronald scoffed in disbelief, recovering faster than Harry, who looked as if he wanted to speak up and yet still hesitated to do so, for some strange reason. 

This version of Ronald Weasley seemed a bit more ornery than the gentleman Hermione had known back at Hogwarts Preparatory through Ginny's family day visits. Ginny's brother had been proper, almost primly so. This March Hare character looked rougher, more toned and hostile in his plain brown breeches and loose white tunic, with boots that came up his knees. Like a brigand from a pirate ship in one of those penny novels she'd read. Her other, chocolate haired companion was also dressed plainly, in a plain black leather vest with (shockingly) no undershirt that showed far too much of his bronzed skin to be decent in polite company. His pants were black and loose, and stranger still his feet were utterly naked.

“I followed him down the hole,” Hermione insisted, utterly convinced despite his grim prediction, “He had a peculiar marking on his face, a snake tattoo, just here,” she indicated the slithering trail down the right side of her forehead and around her the eye. 

“It's true,” the cat man confirmed at last, “I smelled it on her when we met before. It was the White Rabbit.”

“Malfoy,” Ronald grimaced, “Bloody head, how in Underland did you survive a encounter with the false Queen's White Rabbit?” 

“He was a bit rude,” Hermione allowed thoughtfully. Next to her, Harry chortled, trying to choke back a laugh and failing. 

“Hear that, Ron? This Alice thinks Draco Malfoy is a bit rude,” he smiled in wicked mirth. 

“It's Hermione, all this Alice nonsense is very confusing.” She confessed in irritation.

“It's your title, like I'm the March Hare, and Harry here is the Cheshire cat. Underlanders earn a title by age eleven or they become peasants and servants.” 

“What a strange world,” Hermione mused, “Why is my title Alice? I'm not a Underworlder and I'm not exactly eleven either.”

“True, most muggleborns who fall here are much younger, but tons of things have been changing as of late.” Ronald observed. 

“Also,” Harry added, blue and purple striped tail swishing lazily behind him as he spoke, “Legend says that the first of your kind to enter Wonderland that was, and pass through all five doors, was named Alice. The title is named in her honor.”

“Five doors?”

Ronald wrinkled his nose at her, before rolling his eyes to Harry in exasperation, “Blimey, she doesn't even know about the doors.”

“Don't be rude Ronald,” Luna advised, looking up from whispering to a cluster of daffodils. “Hermione is new here, and she's only just been through her first door.” 

“If Malfoy has seen her, then the Dark Lord knows she's here.” Harry observed mulishly.

“The Dark Lord always knows when a muggleborn enters Underland, now he merely knows what she looks like, possibly,” Luna corrected lightly, seemingly unconcerned. 

“If Rabbit-boy knows than the Dark Lord knows, you can be sure of that,” Ronald scoffed, crossing his arms. 

“Who is the Dark Lord?” Hermione was curious, but there was more to it. She was sick of them speaking of things she knew nothing about so matter of factly. Annoyed. That was it. She was very annoyed. 

Ronald grimaced, rage flashing across his face, “Only the worst rotter in all of Underland. Murderous, foul, treacherous…”

“”Oi! Marchy, is that anyway to speak of your betters?” A figure materialized from the woods, brandishing a slender wooden stick that the inhabitants in this world seemed to always possess somewhere on their person. 

“Malfoy,” Harry all but hissed through his teeth, his ears and tail sticking on end as he narrowed his green eyes at the ivory haired man emerging from the thick of the wood. 

“The one, the only,” he grinned in a flash of teeth, trying to look cocky and confident but their was a tension to his features, pinched in their sharpness that gave away the effort. His rabbit ears drooped sadly, as if unable to remain fully alert. 

What's more, his pale skin was covered in a sheen of sweat, his pewter colored eyes rimmed in red with dark hallows carved freshly beneath them. Despite his still impeccable clothes and disdainful bravado he seemed to be much worse for the wear since they'd last met. 

“Are you quite alright?” Hermione worried, wondering what had happened to him, he looked nearly sick and possibly injured upon close inspection. The hand that held his stick aloft trembled a bit as he sneered. 

Everyone gaped at her as if she was utterly mental, Luna included. 

“Better than you're about to be, Mudblood,” he snarled, swirling the stick at her and uttering snidely, “Avada Kedavra.” A jet of green light, so piercing she closed her eyes on reflex, sprouted from the end of his stick in a brilliant mass of emerald magic.

-*-

A/N: Short, I know, but I'll have the follow-up posted by the fourteenth. Also, I love a good cliff hanger. Although, let's face it, does anyone even believe for a millisecond Hermione dies without kissing Tom? Nah. Didn't think so. See you soon. Your kudos and comments are legendary to me. Seriously.


	9. Can You Die In A Dream?

Down A Hole  
By: Absinthe Dreams

"If I leave my grin behind   
Remind me  
That we're all mad here   
And it's okay..."

\- S.J. Tucker "Cheshire Kitten (We're All Mad Here)"

 

Then:

“Better than you're about to be, Mudblood,” he snarled, swirling the stick at her and uttering snidely, “Avada Kedavra.” A jet of green light, so piercing she closed her eyes on reflex, sprouted from the end of his stick in a brilliant mass of emerald magic.

 

Now:

A hard body shoved her to the ground, just in the knick of time, it seemed. Her eyes opened despite the vertigo, just to witness the green bolt of light strike the earth where she had just stood. It left a charred mark in its wake and dirt spraying up at the force. She blinked up at Harry, her annoyed looking savior, equally alarmed and grateful all at once.

Hermione dug her nails into the ground as her eyes found the blackened patch of dirt, wondering what it might have done to her had she been still foolishly standing there with her eyes squeezed shut. Also, the amber eyed girl was pretty sure she'd skinned her knees and sprained her wrist. What with being thrown blindly like that, it was to be expected. 

While she contemplated her mortality in this odd world she'd fallen into, the others around her continued to interact. 

“Stupefy!” Harry yelled. 

The White Rabbit gracefully dodged his stream of red magic that blasted into the trunk of a tree, his slender body swirling behind a larger, secondary tree before he let out a irked curse. Now he'd lost the element of surprise. Nothing was progressing well for him as of late. 

“That Mudblood will die sooner or later!” Malfoy sneered from behind the tree, taunting but also a bit desperate, “By my hand or the Dark Lord's!”

“Well, then, thank Underland that git isn't here, and in case you didn't notice, Rabbit-boy, you're outnumbered three to one,” Ronald spat as he drew his own bit of wood from a sheathe on his hip, and the usually dreamy Dormouse beside him mirrored the motion, Luna's vibrant blue eyes hard and serious for once. 

“Hermione, hide behind us,” she instructed kindly. Something in the stubborn natured girl rankled at the suggestion, even though she knew it was only logical. Reluctantly, Hermione dragged herself up, only to fling herself abruptly to the side to avoid another jet of unholy green light that was shot at the precise spot where she'd begun to stand. The White Rabbit's cry of what sounded like gibberish to her still ringing through the woods. Advara Kadabra.

“Expelliarmus!” Cried Harry, as Ron followed shortly with, 

“Confundus!” 

Both jets of bright magic hit trees and air, missing their intended target. Yet their attack forced the snake tattooed man to seek cover yet again. It also had the supreme benefit of simultaneously giving Hermione the time she needed to scramble to the thick cover of the brush behind them. 

“Give up, Rabbit, we're not letting you get anywhere near Hermione,” Harry ground out, ears flattened to his messy chocolate locks. His tail swished his agitation in a angry streak of purple and blue behind him as he bared his teeth in what looked like a almost silent hiss of punctuation.

“Oh it's Hermione, is it, then? No title for this one?” Draco's cool voice drawled mockingly from further in the forest, “Careful kitty, or you'll end up like you're dear old dad. In love with a Mudblood and just as dead for it.”

“Harry,” Luna cautioned, catching the messy haired boy's arm as he started to prowl forward. “He's trying to lure you in and separate us. What's important now is that we get Hermione to the Burrow, before Malfoy can call for more of them.”

“Harry,” Luna urged again as the cat eared man's jaw twitched madly, his feet carrying forward and half dragging the slighter girl with him. “Ronald?”

Ron shrugged and scoffed, “Harry can take that rabbit eared Ponce, and it's no less than he deserves saying that, let Harry at him Luna.”

“Let me go, Dormouse,” Harry growled, temper ignited. Luna reluctantly released him, sensing the violence simmering in the air around the blue and purple striped cat boy, his magic cackled like invisible fire. 

“Wait!” He didn't even pause and so Hermione scrambled out from her hiding spot to catch him, “Please! Just for a moment. I only need to say one thing!” Whether it was her desperate ‘please’ or her assurance that she didn't mean to stop him for good Hermione wasn't certain but as he hesitated she seized her moment and impulsively tossed her arms around him in a impromptu hug. 

He stiffened. 

“Thank you,” the bushy haired girl gave his torso and shoulders a squeeze for emphasis, “You saved my life.” Hermione had decided, rather cautiously and reluctantly, that if she was in fact getting hurt in small amounts in Underland, it was in fact perhaps possible that she could very well die here as well. The revelation had been a blow, to put it lightly. 

“What are you doing?” Harry asked stiffly. Hermione pulled back, frowning up at the no longer quite as furious man furrowing his brows down at her. Their bodies were pressed skin tight. She was so much smaller than him, tucked below his chin and wrapped up around his lean frame, her chest and legs braced against him as her arms hugged the side of his biceps, hands clasped behind his neck. This close, she could smell him, he smelled like a summer storm, a intangible scent that tasted like lightning and rain on the back of her tongue. 

In the next moment, she registered all his hard, masculine warmth, pressed so indecently to her soft puffy curves and color traveled up her neck and inflamed her cheeks. His question rang belatedly in her ears, furthering her awkward discomfort. What was she doing?

“Oh, sorry,” Proprietary kicked in and she realized she was embracing a relative stranger, in public, a man nonetheless who was neither her family nor her intended. Dolores Umbridge, her etiquette teacher, would surely faint on the spot if she learned of Hermione's broach in manners. 

Letting out a very undignified squeak, she backpedaled from the bemused man, her eyes so wide in her profile it almost hid her scarlet blush of mortification. 

“I didn't-Sorry - I didn't mean to, it was a accident,” she drew up, bracing for admonishment like she would normally receive at school. None came. 

Harry cleared his throat, eyeing Ron as if to ask what her reaction was about, the red headed March Hare shrugged, offering no insight. 

“No, I mean, what were you doing? That bit with your arms?” 

Hermione felt properly scandalized as by her own behavior despite the lack of admonishment as she mumbled contritely, “I didn't mean to offend, I know a embrace like that isn't proper, I was overcome and I-”

“A embrace?” Harry cut her off, repeating the word thoughtfully, he mouthed it, as if testing out the way it formed in his mouth, “That's what it's called?”

Hermione blinked, “It's called that, in more layman's terms it might be called a hug,” she informed him before asking in wonder, “Have you never been hugged before?” But of course that was impossible. Everyone had been hugged, if not as a adult than by a nanny or parent as a child.

Harry slowly shook his head, still thoughtfully contemplating the odd warmth that had passed through him at the human girl's nearly violent grip. Only it hadn't been violent, had it? No, it had been rather pleasant once he recovered from the oddity of it. 

“No,” he confirmed, “A hug, eh? It was warm, like laying in the sunshine for a long nap. I want another,” he decided in selfish cat-like instinct looking down at her in expectant demand. Hermione blushed harder, a feat she hadn't thought possible just moments prior. 

“I-I-I…”

“In case you two have forgotten, there's a homicidal Death Eater on the loose, since Harry wasn't kind enough to put him out of our collective misery. We sort of need to move on, weird muggleborn habits aside.”

“Later, then,” Harry nodded to himself, explaining regretfully “Ron's right, the White Rabbit is likely still lurking about.” Hermione sighed in relief as the awkwardness of her rejection was taken out of her hands by fortuitous circumstance. 

“Stay by me,” Harry told her, gripping her wrist and half dragging her with him possessively, “I won't let that bugger Malfoy near you.” Even as he vowed it though, his body began to disappear, vanishing slowly but surely, much as it had done the first time they met. Suddenly his grip wasn't even a sensation, his fingers nearly see through.

“Oh bloody head,” he swore, noticing his body's sudden but rapidly growing transparency, “Sorry Hermione,” he grimaced ruefully, “I can't control it.”

“It's alright,” she assured him, but she wasn't certain he heard her. Or even where he would go when he vanished come to think of it. She made a mental note to ask him about it next time. 

“Such a pity,” Luna commented airily, drawing the honey eyed Alice's stare from the spot where Harry had just stood, now emptied of even the last wavered hint of him. “He’ll miss out on lunch, and he does so like a good lunch.”

“What was his meaning?” Hermione wondered aloud, “Not having been hugged? How is that possible?” She frowned worriedly as she followed the other two, their strange sticks drawn in their hands as they traveled down the dirt road. 

“Bloody weird is what it is, squeezing another person like that,” Ron shuddered. “I didn't like the look of it, but Harry's always been odd. It's probably because of his mixed blood.”

Hermione frowned at him, not understanding.

“Underlanders don't do a great many things Muggleborns or Alices do, we are…” Luna pressed her lips, searching for a proper explanation, “built differently. Your customs may seem strange to us at times, but Harry seemed to find it pleasant enough. Since he's part Alice himself, so Ronald supposes it makes sense he likes your traditions.” Luna translated in her usual airy wisdom, adding thoughtfully,

“In any case it did calm Harry enough that he didn't follow Malfoy. A decision which would have been a grave mistake so early in the game.” 

Hermione felt frustrated at what felt like yet another partial explanation.

“Lunch?” She asked instead of pressing the issue, “Isn't it nearly dinner time?”

“You really should start asking better questions. I know you have them.” The blonde Dormouse chided with equal affection towards the latest Alice. There had been so many, they all seemed to blur together now. But not this one. 

“When I'm ready,” Hermione's fingers twisted in her skirts, her smile brittle, “I'll ask those questions when I am able to properly hear their answers.”

“Very wise,” the Dormouse nodded. “Just be careful of who you ask them to.”

The curly haired girl nodded absently, if only she could as easily shake off her inner dialogue. She did have better questions. What were their sticks? What was that green light? If this was a game, how did you win? What were the five doors? What did them mean? But she didn't ask. Not yet. Because in her head, minus her gratitude to Harry for saving her life, there was little else but one thought...

She could die here. 

Possibly.

Probably.

And there was at least one person, and likely many more, currently trying to kill her in this world.

Everyone she met had been mentioning how all the Alices were dead, or gone, or making other vaguely ominous insinuations that seemed to somehow involve this so-called Dark Lord and people called Death Eaters of all things. Yet she'd been holding it separate from herself. Assuring herself she wasn't in any real danger. Not truly. 

Now she wasn't quite as certain. It was getting harder to dismiss all this as her just dreaming. After all, her wrist still throbbed, and her knee scratches were crusted in dirt and blood and other bits. She could feel everything. All at once. The wind through the trees, her pain, her background worry that she had gone terribly mad. It seemed too real to be a dream. Or too vivid to be madness, even, but she supposed that was a trick of madness, to seem too real to deny, and so she mistrusted her sanity still. But she couldn't dwell on it, if she had gone mad, well, it was already done and there was little she could do that would stop it. 

It was easy to be brave when she believed it all a dream. To plow through with reckless whimsy, but now it all started to seem recklessly real. Even the yellow-blue mottled leaved trees with red veins running through their dark brown trunks, the flower faces forming in the petals, magic...All of it but perhaps what the Underlanders thought she was. What would they do if they figured out she had no magic? Never had? Well, the logical brunette rationalized, she'd never claimed to have any real magic, they had simply told her she was a Alice and expected her to have it. 

Shamefully, she knew she was being a bit of a ostrich, sticking her head in the sand when confronted with fearful reality. But the stubborn girl rationalized that her standpoint was justified. So she continued to bicker with the Ronald lookalike who was actually very unlike the man she knew, and ignore the blonde girl's knowing smile. Asking more in depth questions would very likely expose her for what she was, magicless, and what would they do with her then? 

Smarter to wait it out, judge their behavior and respond appropriately until she got her head about her. She needed to act rationally, despite the irrationality of her situation. Hermione frowned as she heard the macabre call of a crow, loud and abrasive in the sedate sound of their crunching steps. It even drowned out the louder tirade of the ruddy faced rabbit, lamenting her calling his stick a stick, when apparently Underlanders called them wands. His words cut off abruptly. 

In consideration, she supposed the sticks were a bit polished, and Luna's even became a smart looking cane at her command. Hermione opened her mouth to try and soothe the harsh tongued man but he hushed her, jutting out his non-stick ah- non-wand carrying hand at her imperiously.

“A Raven,” he looked to Luna in alarm. “It's much too soon, she barely crossed the first door.”

“Sooner than most, but hardly too soon,” Luna chided, “You'll see, Ronald, this Alice is a fast learner.”

“Well she better be,” he muttered darkly, “Ravens don't just caw for no reason.”

“No, they don't,” Luna agreed easily, “Come now, we're almost there.”

____*_____

A/N: I know, still no Tom and Hermione interaction. It's taking longer for them to meet than I anticipated but I realized that if Hermione doesn't understand anything about magic before she meets him...Well, I've written my Tom not to suffer ignorance easily lol. I hope you stick around, I have much more to share.


	10. How To Brew Tea and Magic

"There is no use trying," said Alice  
"One can't believe impossible things."

"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen.

-Lewis Carroll "Alice In Wonderland"

 

Down A Hole  
By: Absinthe Dreams

 

After her bought in the woods Hermione was brought to the place called the Burrow. A part of the cynical girl in black and red tights wouldn't have been shocked to discover a actual rabbit hutch as the destination, given Ronald's long furry red brown ears. But the home was odder even than what she expected. Appearing instead to be a hodgepodge of other homes pieced and smushed together in a precariously teetering tower of architecture. A turret there, balcony here, no rhyme or reason, just unstable wobbling in the breeze. The same breeze pulling through the break of trees and into the lavender-red grassed meadow beyond. The lone structure gave a telling groan as they approached and Hermione half feared it would topple on her head as they navigated the creaking front steps.

The Burrow was at the top of a large hill, and from the elevated vantage she could see the woods they came from behind them in the North, stretching all the way to the ivory castle in the distance. To the west there was a large intricate hedge maze, the size and height of which boggled the mind. It might take a person months to navigate such a labyrinth. Directly to the South, although far enough out she had to squint her eyes to see the details of it, lay a enormous stone wall, crawling with lavender moss and shell pink ivy. It stretched on for miles and miles, barring off the barren landscape beyond. To the east there was meadow after meadow of wild flowers. All colors and arrays, some utterly new and others altogether familiar. 

All at once the door was thrust open, and a stout but cheery looking woman beamed at her, her long fluffy red brown ears the only remarkable difference between the Molly Weasley she'd known and the one who stood before her. 

“Fred! George! Our guest is here!” She turned and hollered in irritation, dusting her hands on her plain white apron she forcibly drew Hermione into the house by her arm. This method of dragging others about seemed common here. 

“An Alice! Well I say, we are most honored that Dumbledore trusts you to our keeping,” Molly enthused, “Of course, my boys can be a bit rough, but each one of them is well trained in magic, I must say.” She squeezed Hermione's arm in dismay, “Why, you're all skin and bones, my dear, has anyone fed you a decent meal? Sometimes they forget, us Underlanders eat for pleasure but you Muggleborns need it to survive, don't you dear?”

The red haired woman was a whirlwind, and she scolded Ronald for making her worry, cursed her other two sons for still not appearing, albeit with a motherly sort of annoyance, and had Hermione situated at the large oaken kitchen table within moments. Her wand waving smartly at a kettle that began to whistle. 

“I've made a fresh pot of tea,” she proclaimed happily. Luna made a polite cough. 

“Oh! Oh! Right, forgive me, I nearly forgot, even Alices can't handle our brew here, a little too potent, right…” She began wringing her hands before beaming, “How about coffee? Will that do, Miss Dormouse?” Luna nodded easily and Molly began to busy herself, her wand swishing this way and that as she used magic to grind the beans and pass boiling water through them, at her command a array of tea cups danced through the air. 

“Underlanders use a certain root in their teas that can be quite...toxic to your kind,” Luna murmured by way of explanation to Hermione, who was watching the display of magic with rapt fascination. 

The hungry girl nodded absently to Luna's advice, helping herself to a slice of toast and smear of butter that Molly had placed down in front of her. Her cheeks pinkened as her stomach growled, but no one seemed all too shocked at her improper display. Mrs. Weasley just began piling more plates of meat and cheese on the table in response while clucking at the others for neglecting her. 

Hermione's mouth watered. Butter was a delicacy at Hogwarts, and Hermione closed her eyes as she chewed, savoring the flavor on the still warmly crisped bread. Her enjoyment was broken by a loud slamming followed by male yelling and running. 

“Oh there you are! And covered in blood again,” the substance on the two boys was black and shiny where it splattered the identical Bloody Twins. They were lean and tall in build, dressed in matching red coat tails and tight black pants, their long orange hair tied up in matching black ribbons at the names of their necks. The substance that painted all over them looked not at all like blood to the curious girl, but the furious woman's nose was scrunched in such distaste as she eyed the two that Hermione didn't want to press the issue. 

“It was unavoidable, honest. We caught a couple snake faces poking their greasy noses over the wall,” George began, nudging his brother.

“Right pricks too, weren't they George?” The name switch was intentional and common amongst them. 

“Sure were, Fred.”

“Anyway mum, seems like Lord snake face himself dispatched the White Rabbit after the Alice.” One of the two gangly, orange haired twins muttered scourgify at himself and then his identical brother, cleaning them off oily black substance coating their sleeveless tailored red jackets, mischievous faces and leanly toned arms. 

“Turns out most snake faces feel rather talkative after a bit of our persuasion-” Their bright blue eyes locked in knowing remembrance. 

“-they couldn't wait to tell us all about it,” the other grinned cheekily, a slight air of menace about him. 

“Squealed a bit, though, didn't they?” His twin snickered in malice. 

“Yeah, rather pathetic really, those Death Eaters get easier to declock day by day,” Fred commented blithely. 

They too, resembled the twin elder brothers Ginny often complained of, but who Hermione had never met. Ginerva often scowled and called them incorrigibly off putting. Despite her constant lamenting of them, however, stories of their pranks and mischiefs were often accounted in great detail to Hermione with found exasperation and sometimes envy coloring the red headed girl's tone. These two didn't seem so innocently motivated. 

“No talk of torture and killing at the lunch table, and certainly not in front of the guest.” Molly chided sternly, “I suppose Bill and Charlie are still on patrol?”

“Somebody’s got to keep out those snakes, ma, especially with our guest, and what do we have here?” One of them drew close to where Hermione sat, sniffing the air just beside her head, much like Harry had done when they first met. 

“Looks like a Alice, smells like a Alice,” the other flanked her, sniffing the air as well. “Probably not a rubber duck, then.”

“Has she done any magic yet?” 

Hermione stiffened uncomfortably, for this was the question she currently dreaded most. 

“Not yet,” Luna confirmed airily. 

“Why not?” George demanded in disbelief. 

“It's easy.” Fred told her with a wink. 

“Watch me,” George swirled his wand and flicked it at the tea pot, which took the form of a angry green pink and orange cat, hissed, and darted off. 

“That's my best tea pot! Go and catch it immediately!” Molly admonished in dismay. 

“Eh, sorry mum.”

“Here kitty, kitty,” the other brother called, already heading towards the hall it'd darted through. Soon his twin was heard calling the same phrase, and Hermione bit her cheek to keep from laughing outright. 

“Bloody morons is what their titles should be, not the Bloody Twins,” Ronald commented snarkily. 

“Ronald!” 

“Sorry mum,” his rabbit ears even drooped. Hermione bit her cheek, so this Ronald was also a mama's boy as well.

Molly put her hands on her hips and sighed, “Sorry Miss Alice, I do try and raise my boys to be proper gentleman, but life on the border has turned them into a uncouth lot.”

“Your family seems very kind,” Hermione assured her, and the woman beamed, “and please, call me Hermione.”

Molly's hand fluttered to her chest, “Aren't you just the sweetest? If only I had more girls.”

“You have a daughter?” Hermione pressed, wondering how she should react if she saw a long, fluffy rabbit eared version of her best friend. Molly froze, her expression growing tightly shuttered. 

“No,” she uttered shortly, abruptly busying herself with the coffee being poured into the tea cups, “How do you take it dear?” She asked a bit shakily, “Sugar? Cream?” 

Hermione felt bad for upsetting the woman, not sure where the tension had sprang from but allowing the subject change easily. “A dollop of cream please, and a spoon of sugar.” 

“Well, I expect my husband, Arthur, is likely still napping, the Lord of the Burrow does enjoy a good afternoon rest, but when he wakes I'm sure he'd be happy to teach you a few spells. In the meantime, once you've tucked into your lunch, I'll have the boys help you find a wand.”

Lunch was a pleasurable affair. Once the twins located the cat and returned it to it's flowery teapot form, they too joined the table. The discussions over the meal were lively and especially animated from Fred and George, who insisted in delving into tales of bloody battles despite their mother's constant beratement. Ronald offered the occasional offhand comment, but mostly occupied himself with stuffing his mouth full with as many sandwiches as his bulging cheeks could contain. Luna sipped on her tea, which she claimed was toxic to people like Hermione, and nibbled at her own sandwich. She only spoke to offer the occasional explanation or insight throughout the twins exuberant and graphic depictions. 

Afterwards, on a full stomach, everything seemed a bit more manageable. Hermione cast out her countless doubts and apprehensions to the back of her mind, deciding firmly there was no way to better deal with her current circumstances than to accept things as they came. So when the subject of yet again arose over procuring her one of those polished sticks they called wands, she tried to fight the sudden twist in her belly and breathe deep. It would be fine. Perhaps. Maybe. 

“Is it safe, this place called Ollivanders?” Hermione wanted to know.

“Oh no.” One twin assured her. 

“Certainly not.” The other added with a pleased grin, rubbing his hands together in glee.

“Don't scare the girl,” their mother admonished, turning to Hermione she added, “Ollivanders is perfectly safe, the journey might not be the easiest, but you'll have my boys to protect you, and of course, Miss Dormouse.”

“Well I hope that bugger of a White Rabbit stays clear, we have enough issues as is, right George?” 

“Couldn't be more right, Fred.”

“We already ran into the White Rabbit, on our way here,” Ronald advised them all. 

“Goodness me, no one was hurt?” Molly fretted, her eyes scanning her youngest boy in worry. She added scowling, “How could you not tell me?”

“No, mum, we weren't hurt,” Ron uttered wryly, “but you can bet Malfoy will be waiting for us to leave the Burrow, and this time, he'll likely have friends. It's no great mystery why Dumbledore is risking sending an Alice to the borderlands.”

“The Dark Lord won't want her getting a wand,” Luna agreed candidly. 

“No, but he's always tucked away in his castle, or hiding behind that posh silver mask and his hoards of Death Eaters whenever he ventures out. Reckon he's disfigured.” George pulled a face at his twin, “Hideous and cross eyed.”

“With warts and pimples,” Fred agreed sagely. They both sniggered, pulling gruesome faces at one another and Hermione for effect. 

“This is not a laughing matter, you two! Steward Dumbledore trusted us with the Alice's safety. Hermione dear, you look a bit peaky, are you all right?”

“Just uh...What if,” Hermione blurted, “What if I can't do magic at all?” 

For a moment there was only silence, and she assumed the worst.

“Oh my,” Molly covered her mouth, looking to Luna in shock before laughing. “Of course you can dear! You passed through Gryffindor's door, after all. The whole four kingdoms are speaking of it.”

“B-but-”

“Here, it won't work as well as the one we find that's meant for you, but eh, hold it like this,” George instructed, pulling her up from her chair and pressing his wand into her hand, the end with quite simple, a polished point, much like a miniature billiard cue, but the end had a twisted pattern of criss crossed Vines and markings within. A strange sensation crawled in her skin as she held it, like static in the storm air. It pricked at her skin, and she felt a slight discomfort slide through her arm, as if it didn't quite like being held by her. 

“Now do this,” he slowly guided her hand through a set of easy but precise motions, “Say episkey, and aim at your knees. A shame about the tights, but it should heal your skin.”

Hermione frowned, having almost forgotten her ripped tights and bloodied knees, but for just a moment she wanted to believe. The energy in the wand felt real, and she imitated the motions, speaking the word simultaneously as he'd demonstrated. 

Her whole body flinched as a jet of light shot from the wand and onto her knee, cinnamon eyes stretched wide as dinner plates as her skin knitted itself together. 

“You're a natural,” George praised lightly, “Usually it takes quite a few tries to achieve it the first time with your kind.”

“I’ll be taking this back for now though,” he added wryly, his dancing blue eyes flickered over her with new respect as he plucked the wand from her grip, “Maybe this Alice has half a shot of surviving, eh?”

“Too soon to tell,” Ronald scoffed. 

“Ronald!” Molly swatted her son, “Hermione is a fine Alice, and you three will make sure she gets to Ollivanders and back, safely, or there will be no carrot stew for a month.” 

All three let out a collective grumble before reassuring their mother that they would be on their best behavior. 

_____*_____

A/N: Sorry for the delay, life's been hectic for me lately. My muse is also being fickle and nitpicking of late. Really she's such a brat sometimes. Still, Tomione sustains us both and I promise to whip her into shape. Smut in the next chapter, but I'm afraid perhaps not the smut you all are staying tuned for or expecting. Don't kill me.


	11. Dark Holes and Dark Plots

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry about my unintentional hiatus... So I could ramble about how I got a thirty day notice from one job and just started another. But who cares, am I right? Bring on the Tomione!! Just know the unofficial hiatus is over, more updates to follow. And as always, you guys are the best for reading this. Honestly. A million kudos to each reader.

Down A Hole  
By: Absinthe Dreams 

 

"The imaginary is what tends to become real." Andre Breton

 

Chapter 11: Dark Holes and Dark Plots

 

Lucky for the group headed from the Burrow, Draco Malfoy had chosen not to stick around and gather more Death Eaters to his cause. His physical pain overrode his desire to spare himself more of the Dark Lord's wrath by eliminating the Alice as quickly as possible, and he picked a weaving path towards the center most meeting of the four kingdoms, where the Clock Tower stood, the only neutral land that now existed in all of Underland. 

It was a desolate, unwelcoming structure. A high and lonesome black tower with a white faced clock morbidly on display at its forefront, with dreary dark blue accents and shutters that climbed for a impossible amount of stories and black iron rails snaking the porch in unfriendly pikes. The sight of it always made Draco uneasy, and yet drew him all at once. Much like it's keeper, a sour man with long shiny black hair and a constant curl to his lip. Draco rattled the sack of stopped clocks in his pocket, still stained in dripping black blood. It seemed the Bloody Twins had been up to their usual antics, which meant he had something to barter with for help. 

The air was icy here, and a dank sadness clung to the place, a unfortunate side effect of the Dementors that rushed in and out. Only Severus Snape remained immune. Although it was hard to tell given his usual demeanor. The White Rabbit dragged his way up the stairs, perspiring from the strain. When he reached the seventieth floor, where Snape chose to keep his workshop, sweat dripped from his pale forehead, slicking his already slick hair in a shinier dampness and seeping through his grey silk undershirt. 

“Ah, Mr. Malfoy,” Snape drawled in his perfectly precise way of speaking. All around the room cauldrons bubbled with potions, reanimated clocks soaking in different jars, some of which had already begun to take a baby-like form around them. Draco swallowed uncomfortably. 

“I brought you more clocks,” he uttered, all but chucking the oil dripping sack at the desk in front of the sneering man. A single slashing black eyebrow lifted imperiously. 

“I thought you found my work dissatisfying? Won't your Lord be displeased when he discovers you gifted these to me?” His eyes were flinty, but Draco could see the way he tightened his hands to keep from reaching out. 

Besides, in this moment Draco no longer wanted to protest that his Dark Lord was in the right. But what did it matter? What did it change? His servitude never had been a choice, nor was it now. 

“Who do you think did this to me?” Draco retorted pissily, gesturing at his injured self. He crossed his arms, glaring at the man leaning back and appraising him shrewdly. 

“Yet, something tells me, it could have been much worse.” 

“Alright, yes, it worked, that thing you did," at the other man's sardonically arched brow he added, "alright, we did,” Draco smirked at him, “He was able to see that I met the Alice, of course, I couldn't hold him out that long. But he didn't catch on to me warning her.”

Black eyes glinted at him in a hungry flare before Snape sneered casually, “I suspect you want me to heal you, in exchange for these,” he waved dismissively at the soggy black stained rucksack, “before we complete our deal.”

“That would be,” the blonde man's mouth dried as Severus took him by the chin as if to examine him better, but the motion was purely dominant, “Preferable.”

“And such a good pet bunny I have,” Snape drawled idly, turning away abruptly to examine his stock. After a careful selection he moved so close the platinum haired man could feel his breath ghosting across his forehead. 

One perfect, pale long finger stroked a purple potion before offering it wryly to the blushing rabbit eared male. “Running back to me in his hour of need.”

“Right, thanks.” Draco tipped back the potion, feeling the effects immediately as it rushed to knit his torn muscles and heal the internal bleeding that his generous Lord had so benevolently inflicted upon him. Thanks to Severus' teachings of Occlumency, a rare magic to be sure. Draco now had the magic skill enough to keep that very same Dark Lord from tearing every last thought and memory from his head.

“So you found my lessons,” Severus’ deliberate pauses in speech drew to a succinct crescendo, “satisfactory?”

“Yes,” Draco fumbled for more to say, the stain on his cheeks going a cherry color, “I know our deal was-”

“Non-negotiable, I'm afraid,” Severus' half lidded stare drilled holes into him. Marking what he wanted. 

Poking about in each other's minds had been foolish on hindsight. Draco had sensed the man's attraction for him, layered beneath caustic criticism and scathing remarks, but their practices in Occulmancy had revealed something Draco had tried very hard to bury. His mutual and damning fascination with the man, the way the self contained blonde caught himself staring at those long nimble fingers and his curled mouth. As soon as Severus discovered Draco's thoughts, his new Master had demanded his price for teaching such a valuable skill. Malfoy had had little choice but to agree. Or so he told himself, but secretly, desperately, he didn't want to admit to the confusing desires growing inside him. The way the other man controlled him was both confusing and electric.

“I only thought- when I agreed to- you know-”

Obsidian eyes narrowed to arrow flints, Severus’ displeasure rolled off him in waves of malicious sarcasm, “To repay my favor, because I am so generous. And ask so little in return,” he interjected concisely, a not very there question mark at the end of his words. As if he barely dared to doubt this was the other man's reasoning. 

“Isn't there anything else? I-” Draco fumbled for something he could offer the man, but a surpressed part of him knew he was only stalling. So did Severus. 

“No.”

“Now,” The dark, swarthy man stood to his full height, and Draco swallowed thickly. His midnight eyes were consuming. A shivering tingle traveled up Draco's spine, his arousal jerking to life without his approval at the silken promise in the other man's tone as Severus uttered leisurely, “It's about time I collected.”

“I'm not a bloody Ponce or some fag-” His churlish denials were cut short. 

“No,” Severus uttered severely, his lips thinned in displeasure as his black eyes sparked. “You are not any of those things. You are simply mine."

"I've been patient, haven't I? Allowing you to adjust?” He drawled out in casual menace, circling the trembling rabbit in languid ease. His long finger drifted under Draco's sharp chin, lifting his wide grey eyes into twin seas of smoldering black ruin. 

“Should I remind you why it's only me?” He mused darkly, slithering a hand up Draco's slender thigh and settling possessively on his groin. 

“Sever-” his plea cut off in a moan as the other man gripped his rabbit ears sharply in one hand, yanking him to his mouth and delving into the twisted cavern like a man dying of thirst who had just discovered water on his tongue. Draco fought to not feel the heat igniting through his veins at the utter dominance, and failed, swept away in the rapturous inferno. As Severus sucked, bit and tangled his tongue and lips, flesh and soul, into a pool of quivering hormones, before shoving the younger man away in a rough countermeasure. Draco sucked in air, dizzy and off balance. 

“Now,” the black eyed man growled imperiously, “I believe a deal is a deal, isn't it, bunny?”

“Yes,” Draco mumbled, fighting a stinging blush as the other man undid his belt, the blonde rabbit's silver eyes skittering across the floor at Severus’ magnetic confidence, how was he supposed to please such a man?

“Look at me,” Severus commanded. Draco did so hesitantly, heart hammering in his ears. Now that he was fully healed he felt foolish. He knew he was playing with fire, being near Severus. Everything about it was forbidden. His mouth was so dry, and as he fought to keep his composure as a knowing gleam stole into the other man's expression. 

“I thought I just needed to bring you to heel, but it's more than that, isn't it?” He gripped Draco's tie, exerting enough pressure as he wound it idly around his fist, slowly pulling and twisting until it began to slightly choke the slender man's throat. Drawing him to his tiptoes, and still he barely reached the man's collar bone. The blonde bit back a moan at the trapped sensation. 

“Are you a virgin?” At Draco's trembling but furious blush that finally bloomed fully on his hollow cheeks, the black haired man towering over him smiled softly in surprised satisfaction. “Then I've changed my mind, I want to pleasure you instead, I want to be the first man to put my mouth on you.” He whispered silkenly into the shell of his ear, “From now on, I'm the only one who touches you, yourself included, are we clear?” He yanked the tie a little tighter, his lithe, long stemmed fingers tracing down the inseam of the trembling man's pants, teasing, enflaming. 

“I'm not a rutting vir-” he gulped as the taller man undid the top button of his pants with a idle and deft flick.

“Don't ruin my generous mood with more petty denials,” Severus advised, pressing a finger to Draco's lips, his other hand tugged down the zipper of his trousers, revealing the bulge of his erection against grey silk. 

The taller man licked his lips once, leisurely, his black eyes narrowed in lust. Draco felt his knees tremble. 

“Draco, my pet, you must relax,” Severus chided, dropping in a liquid motion to his knees and yanking free the other man's already slightly dripping cock in approval, stroking it thoughtfully. He gripped the member and watched as the man above him shuddered in response, snow colored eyelashes fluttering, “I know what's best for you.” His mouth suckled the tip, and the blonde felt his spine stiffen and legs jerk at the heady sensation. The dark haired man hummed, the sound traveling up his cock and Draco had to lock his knees as his body shook from the overload of sensation. The dark haired man pulled back and his mouth made a lewd popping sound as he did so. Even on his knees Snape looked like the devil incarnate. Dark eyes shining, raven hair framing a face of intricately layered character and dark beauty. 

A tongue traveled Severus’ pearly canines, before he wetted his full lips, “Tell me what I want to hear, and I will reward you.”

Draco trembled, fists clenched so tight he was near certain he'd drawn blood shaped crescents in his palms, “I'm yours, master,” the blonde man managed hoarsely. 

Severus smirked and enclosed his mouth on Draco's engorged tip once again. His tongue swirled, and Draco fought not to whimper as the onyx eyed man took him into his mouth, fully engulfing him in fire and pleasure. Severus pulled him deep, sucked hard and retreated with a soft graze of teeth just to repeat it all again, the hot cavern of his sinful mouth overriding all thought but more, please, for the love of Wonderland, more. 

____*_____

Some time late Severus lazily traced a nail down Draco's nipple, “You are a delightfully faster learner, but we still have something important to discuss.” He plucked the pink flesh and the other man shifted slightly, feeling himself stirring to life despite his intentions. 

Draco was feeling immensely pleased with himself, having experienced his first non self-assisted orgasm and having turned the skills Snape taught him on the other man until he had cum hard and fast forcing Draco to swallow quickly or risk his new master's severe displeasure. Severus had pet his face and called him a good boy. 

“You can't kill this Alice,” Snape told him in a drawl of absolute authority. 

“If I don't, in five time lapses the Dark Lord will kill me.” Draco scoffed, making as if to roll off the bed. Snape pounced, pressing the shorter, slighter man into the bed beneath him, a sinister expression carving his face. 

“You don't fear the Dark Lord, or his Queen,” Severus told him, nibbling sharp biting kisses down his jaw for emphasis, “Only me,” his attention traveled down Draco's throat in jolting nips, “I'm your only true master,” he pulled back, expression severe, “and I've said she lives.”

Draco groaned and furrowed his brow, “Even you can't face Lord Voldemort and survive.”

“Look at you, bravely speaking his name,” Severus mused in a mocking manner, “No, I can not. Which is why this Alice must live. She's the first to pass a door in too long. The Dark Lord's grip on Underland grows so tight it strangles.”

“He will kill me Severus,” Draco insisted sourly. 

“Not if you remain here, in the Clock Tower, with me.”

“No one can remain here, not with your bloody Dementors coming in and out,” Draco wrinkled his nose and shoved the man off, sitting up and running a hand through his ruffled ivory locks. His rabbit ears twitched. “It doesn't work, you and I. But it was a nice distraction.”

“Distraction?” The other man uttered dangerously, going still. 

Draco gulped and began pulling his clothes on in his haste. “Thanks, Sev, really. But I should go, the time has already lapsed once since I got here.”

“Yes,” the dark haired man drawled in icy slowness, “You should go, and Draco?”

“What?” Draco asked half defensively as he shrugged on his fine coat. 

“Thanks for the distraction,” it was said with such icy precision that the blonde man winced, realizing his mistake too late. He opened his mouth to soothe it, only to think better of it and stubbornly walk from the room in a brashly determined stride. He felt the pressure of Severus’ dark gaze burning into him as he left, and knew he would eventually pay for his hastily spoken words. And likely Snape would also be upset he still planned to kill the Alice, but Severus didn't understand. 

Draco couldn't bear that torture again. The snake mark tattooed on his sharply featured face wasn't just decoration, he belonged to the Dark Lord. Voldemort could always find him, always summon him, as he could any of his marked Death Eaters. Draco couldn't betray him. It wasn't even possible. So this Alice had to die. 

It was just that simple.

 

A/N: So once again, if you didn't read the note at the beginning of the chapter, sorry about the insanely overdue update. My life is a mess. I'll be better. How's my smut? Is it smutty enough? Honestly this character relationship just snuck up on me, so my muse and I double cross our fingers hope you like it. More to follow, promise


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